DENVER — Braves quotes from Shelby Miller, Kelly Johnson, Cameron Maybin and Fredi Gonzalez after Friday’s 5-3 loss to the Rockies.
**SHELBY MILLER
Did all the frustrations and emotions come to a head after the fourth inning (when he tossed hat and glove into dugout)
“Yeah, all that stuff.”
Big park, balls just carry here?
“Yeah, it’s a tough place to pitch. It’s a big outfield, having to run some balls down in the gaps, they’re, like, 390 (feet), 415 to center. It’s hard to cover that outfield, it’s a big outfield. We’ve got guys tracking down balls, trying to make plays, it’s just falling in there. Which is expected here, for sure.”
Was your frustrated aimed somewhat at the way your pitches were reacting? You hear sometimes that pitches don’t break as much or move as much here at high altitude.
“It’s just the worst my fastball command’s been all year. It’s not even close. I don’t even know how many strikes I threw, it was probably not even 50/50, I probably threw more balls than I did strikes with my fastball tonight. I just didn’t get ahead in the count, left balls over the middle of the plate, everything was up, and it was just a terrible day.”
Good time for a break, go to the All-Star game and try to relax a little bit for a few days?
“Yeah, we’ll relax then, but it’s still today, so I’m frustrated with that. Obviously break’s always good, but I kind of wish I would have went into the break on more of a positive note. But at the end of the day, it’s a tough place to pitch. I didn’t make pitches. Absolutely my fault.”
Did you feel like you had maybe made an adjustment when you got through the second and third innings without giving up a run?
“Not really. I didn’t have anything sharp. Nothing was very good tonight at all.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Shelby Miller tossing glove and hat into dugout after fourth inning
“He got a little frustrated. I think more frustrated with himself. He was fighting his delivery a little bit on some of his pitches, left some balls over the plate a little too much. Yeah, you saw that (signs of frustration) a little bit, but I think he was more frustrated with himself and fighting his delivery more than anything else.”
Looked like the outfielders might have lost a ball or two in the sun in the fourth?
“No, those balls just keep going. Are you talking about (triple past) Jonny Gomes and the one (ground-rule double) to Maybin? No, I think it’s just this ballpark is so big to cover, and the balls stay hit and they just keep traveling, and we just couldn’t run them down.”
Jonny Gomes said before game this park is so big, you’ve got to play in for bloop or deep, but there’s no in-between
“There is no in-between. It’s a ballpark that’s tough to play. They hit the ball and it’ll keep carrying.”
What about their (pitcher), what was he doing….
“Which of the four?” (Germen.)
“(Doing) nothing special. He’s a reliever, we’ve seen him in the past, instead of coming in late in the game he came in at the beginning of the game, and he gave them three innings. Laffey the same thing, and so on and so on.”
Offense has only scored in two innings during first two games, facing so many pitchers – eight last night, six tonight, mostly guys you’ve not seen much
“I think sometimes not seeing a reliever or starter more than once, trying to get your bearings – we had some people on base, we just didn’t get the big hit a couple of different times. I know the last couple of days, I’m not so sure nobody faced anybody more than twice. I know Petey (Jace Peterson) faced Freidrich twice, but I think other than that, everybody just faced somebody once. And so maybe not scoring runs is a byproduct of that.”
On relievers tonight
“Carpenter came back and got some outs, nice to see. Even Manny, that’s a big inning that we covered with Manny that we don’t have to cover with some of the other guys and be ready for tomorrow.”
So Banuelos just used that as a side session, in effect?
“Yeah, we probably won’t use him again. We’ll line him up coming out the other side of the break. The only time he’s ever been out of the bullpen I think has been in spring training, and maybe some games in the minor leagues or something like that.”
**KELLY JOHNSON
On balls carrying over outfielders’ heads, etc., weird night at Coors Field
“Their offense…they’ve obviously got some players. I mean, they’re doing well, unfortunately for us. We are getting close, though. It’d be nice if we could get a few more runs in this place.”
On facing so many different pitchers the past two nights, most of them for one or two innings at a time
“That’s the hard part about it, it’s like spring training. It’s not a familiar team, either, not guys we have a lot of history with. Haven’t played them this year at all. That actually is harder than you might think. It’s easy to look up and go numbers by numbers or whatnot, but it is tough.”
On Shelby Miller’s 10-start winless streak, though he’s obviously pitched far better than that most nights except tonight
“He’s an All-Star. He’s been rewarded in that way, everybody acknowledges it. I don’t think there’s any alarms sounding. He’s throwing the ball, it’s coming out good. I mean, I know tonight he probably didn’t have good location, getting a feel for those pitches like he wanted. And of course they didn’t miss the ones that we over the plate.”
On Miller showing frustrating after the fourth inning, something he hasn’t done much at all before tonight
“It’s OK. It’s good to see some emotion and see him have to fight through that. Things are easy when you’re rolling. When things aren’t going your way and you’re not feeling like you want, that’s when it’s really time to bear down. So hopefully, learning experience. We’re not worried about him, he’s an awesome teammate and he’s having a heckuva year. We’ve got tons of confidence in him.”
**CAMERON MAYBIN
On the ground-rule double that bounced in front of him as he tried sliding catch toward left-center
“Look where I was playing. Look where I was set up. I was surprised I even got there. It’s a huge gap. I was playing in right-center field. Anybody else probably wouldn’t have been close to that ball.”
