PHILADELPHIA — Braves quotes after Friday’s 1-0 loss in a series opener against the Phillies.
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
Did you think you had a play at the plate if you’d fielded the ball?
“Yes. Just missed it.”
On how the bullpen pitched after taking some heat recently
“The whole pitching staff. Woody pitched awesome. Obviously Avi (Luis Avilan) and Cody (Martin) did their job, and Jim Johnson did his job, too. We just didn’t make the plays behind them.”
On the lack of offense during the losing streak
“I think obviously we’re capable of being way better than this. It doesn’t help when your four hitter is just not doing anything right now, so hopefully I can pick it up here shortly.”
More on the skid
“I think we’re better than what we’ve been showing the last four games, and hopefully it starts tomorrow.”
Did you see him running from third and kind of rush the play?
“I just had to act like a shortstop, and obviously I’m not one of those. I just missed the play. It’s on me.”
Do you still think this team has enough leadership to regroup and get back on track?
“Yes. It’s not like we’re in September. We’re still .500 right now, and hopefully we can start playing better tomorrow.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On the loss
“Two hits. We had some opportunities. (Runners at) first and third, they turn a double play. They turned two double plays. We just didn’t get the knock. Even there in the last inning. It’s a tough one. I thought JJ did a great job, keeping the ball down, getting ground balls. I’m not so sure that even if Freeman comes up with that ball there’s a play at the plate, even though he has an above-average arm. The guy running at third base, I don’t know if there’s a play there are not. Still, it doesn’t sit right making four errors the entire game. That’s not what we’re about.
“Again, we didn’t do anything against Harang, a guy that we know. We’ve seen him pitch 30-some times. He did a good job keeping us off-balance.”
On Alex Wood
“Woody was good. He mixed his pitches well. His secondary pitch, he threw for strikes. He gave us, and really everybody out of that bullpen tonight, gave us an opportunity to get a win.”
Harang just do the same things as last year, kept you off-balance?
“He did. He can throw any pitch at any time, and he had about as good a command of all his pitches today as I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve seen some good outings when he was with us last year. Shoot, he had a no-hitter (for seven innings) in New York. But he had his command going tonight, and when he does that and he can mix his secondary pitches, he’s going to do something like he did tonight against us.”
On the offense, so solid last week at Toronto, you think it’s just going through a tough stretch right now?
“I hope so. There’s a lot of talented guys in there that really work hard at their craft. And it’s just … we’ve hit the ball hard, really. I think CJ in his first at-bat, if the wind is not blowing in, that ball’s in the seats. Somebody else lined out to left field. Even Kelly Johnson’s double-play ball in the ninth inning there was hit fairly hall. Simmons’ ball on the double play was hit hard, they’re just hit at people right now.”
**ALEX WOOD
At least pleased with how you pitched?
“Yeah, for sure. My sinker’s starting to come around. I’m getting closer. It’s tough in this temperature to get a grip on the ball with the wind. Everybody deals with that out there, too. But I felt pretty good tonight. I thought I battled. The first time I looked at the scoreboard I was at 95 pitches, and then that last inning I was kind of surprised, I felt like I had thrown less than that. Besides that I thought it was good.”
On the cold weather
“That’s one of those things, you go all spring in the nice, hot Florida weather. Then you come out and you go to Toronto, then you come to Philly and it’s cold, especially when the wind’s blowing like it did. So it’s one of those things, you’ve just got to figure it out.”
On the bullpen being solid tonight, has taken some criticism recently
“The thing is, it’s early. Just because one of us goes out there and has a shaky start or a shaky inning, that’s why you play 162 games. Everybody wants to say, ‘Oh, my, what’s going on?’ But it’s one of those things where you’ve just go to stay focused on the process, stay focused on what you need to do to have success throughout the year and long-term, and be prepared to go out there and give us the best chance to win.”
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