Braves quotes after Friday’s 5-3 loss to Mets

“I don’t know if that’s happened to me. Just some bad at-bats by me today, especially in some big situations. Second-guessing myself up there a couple of times. You’ve got to kind of eliminate the mental aspect of it; I was thinking up there too much. You get yourself into trouble when you do that.”

You mean thinking about it too much after not coming through twice in those situations earlier?

“No. Just not sticking with my plan. I have a plan going up there. You change your thought process in the middle of it, it can really hurt you. It got me tonight. Swung at a bad pitch from Torres with the bases loaded, after him walking a couple of guys. I should have been looking for a ball over the plate, instead I was trying to do too much. It came back to bite me today.

“And the last time, in that last inning, I was just looking for a good pitch. I got a good pitch; sometimes it’s hard to hit 99 (mph). I gave it my shot, and we failed, or I failed. We move on, I move on, and we look to win the game tomorrow.”

**FREDI GONZALEZ

Nick the guy you want up there in that situation, with bases loaded in ninth?

“Absolutely. Both of those guys (Markakis and Freddie Freeman, who walked before Markakis GIDP). I thought Free put up one heckuva at-bat against him. With Nicky, I felt pretty good. Not that he’s going to run the ball out of the ballpark; I thought he was going to split a game, get at least two guys in.

“Even Cunningham started that inning with a nice line drive, Ceciliani made a nice play on it. But we had really, really good at-bats throughout that ninth inning. Throughout the game, also. I thought their add-on runs – the home runs are the home runs, but their add-on runs there in the sixth and the seventh, they were big for them, obviously.”

On the irony of Markakis being one of your best hitters the past month or more, and goes 0-for-5 including three times with bases loaded

“That’s the way this game is sometimes. But he’s a professional. You keep getting him in those situations, he’s going to split a gap.”

On Wood’s errant pickoff throw leading to unearned run in sixth

“It happened early in the week against the Padres with Grilli. We have two middle infielders who are really active, and they do a nice job holding those runners. We put on a pick and we just didn’t execute it.”

On Wood’s performance

“He battled. It was a situation there in the sixth, where we had (runners at) first and second with two outs, and I’m choosing to let him hit there because of our situation in the bullpen, and he’s pitching really good enough, let him have it. I don’t want to cover three or four innings out of the bullpen in that situation, but I felt that good about him that I let him hit there.”

“It’s a good outing. Believe it or not, a couple of years go those balls don’t go out (before they brought fences in at Citi Field), they just barely made it to the party deck (beyond the fence). But the party deck’s there for both teams. But he did fine. He gave us an opportunity to win a ball game.”

On losing again to Colon

“He’s tough on us. He throws the ball over the plate and the ball goes everywhere – it cuts, it sinks, it rises. We’ll try to figure him out.”

**ALEX WOOD

Other than two mistake pitches on homers, and errant pickoff throw, did you feel like you were in control most of the night?

“I thought it was a battle the whole night. The pitch to Wilmer was just a pitch I left over (the plate). The pitch to Mayberry, just bad pitch selection on my part; I probably shouldn’t have tried to go in there. But we grinded, man. Sucks we came up short, but it’s one of those things, I tried to give the guys everything I had. Just like they do. They set a high standard every single night that we go out there, from start to finish. Sometimes it really stinks on my end when I wasn’t able to quite do enough tonight.”

On the pitch selection to Mayberry

“We tried to go with a fastball in. I probably left it middle-in. I probably should have thrown something different there, but hindsight’s 20-20.”

Mayberry has six hits including a couple of homers in about 15 at-bats against you

“If I make the pitches that I need to, I should handle him. Tonight he just took advantage of a mistake.”

On lessons learned from an outing like this

“I can accept a physical mistake. The mental mistake to Mayberry, I wouldn’t call it a growing pain, I just would call it a mental mistake. And that’s what bothers me, because I pride myself on being the most prepared and winning that chess match….”

Do you beat yourself up over the errant pickoff throw to second?

“It’s hard to beat yourself up. I wouldn’t say it’s a high-risk play, because we’re pretty good at it. It’s just something that happened. To me that’s a physical mistake. I don’t know if he’s out or now with a good throw, but it’s something I like doing, and it won’t keep me from doing it again, that’s for sure.”