Braves quotes from Williams Perez, Freddie Freeman and Fredi Gonzalez after Friday’s 2-1 win against the Phillies.
**FREDI GONZALEZ
You more pleased with Perez or the bullpen tonight?
“I think both. I think Willy (Williams Perez) gave us a nice night, he battled. Our bullpen did a nice job there. We put Vizcaino behind the eight-ball there in the ninth inning. For him to have to get five outs (due to error on potential double-play grounder and a wild-pitch strike 3), it’s hard in a one-run ballgame.”
Seems like Perez in past few starts has done a better job keeping the ball down and limiting the damage
“I agree. Now we’ve got to get him over the plate a little bit. The pitch count – 103 in 5 2/3 innings – we’ve got to get him, little steps with him. But I’m really pleased and optimistic about his strides.”
Some rough times for McKirahan this year, but he had a big strikeout of Francoeur with bases loaded
“If you look at it, other than Moylan I think all these guys we used tonight pitched in Double-A, started (the season) in A-ball, or some were guys in Triple-A and it’s their first time in the big leagues. If I’m not mistaken, all of them except Moylan. And here we are trying to save a one-run ballgame with those guys. We won the ballgame. It’s great experience for those guys.”
How is Garcia, was he hurt?
“Garcia’s fine.”
So did you pull him out because of the baserunning mistake?
“Yeah. We’re 150 games below .500 and there are some times where you can live with physical mistakes and you can live with some mental mistakes, but sometimes there’s mistakes that, we don’t want to play those games here at the big-league level. The young man will learn from that. He’ll be back in there whenever he gets back in there. It just didn’t sit well with me, and I don’t think it sits well with our fans, especially with the season that’s going on right now.”
On the bullpen performance, coupled with series-opening performance against Blue Jays, good for their confidence?
“I think so. It’s fun watching these guys develop. Marksberry completing the eighth inning by himself; we didn’t have to go left-right with him. Hopefully that will catapult him to his next appearance in another situation that’s high leverage. And again, he started in A-ball this year, and here he is pitching in the big leagues.”
On McKirahan shovel toss to the plate for the out
“That’s one of the plays we practice in spring training all the time, the glove play. And it was a nice tag by Bethancourt also.”
On Simmons’ barehand catch and rifle one-hop throw to first base
“And how ‘bout Freeman coming up with that ball? If I was Freeman I would be running to the dugout when that ball was thrown. And he stuck with it, he stuck his nose in there and made a heck of a play.”
On Vizcaino striking out three with two on in 9th, then having to get another out with bases loaded after the wild-pitch strike 3
“That’s another growing moment. He walks the first guy, Frenchy (Francoeur). And then we don’t turn a possible double play, don’t even get an out (Olivera error). And then on the possible game-ending strikeout the ball goes into the stands. He’s got to get five outs to get a save, and he kept his composure the whole time.”
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
On the bullet of a one-hop throw from Simmons, what were you thinking?
“Just please don’t get hit in the face, because I know he’s throwing it. He gave me the best hop you could possibly get in that situation, and I closed my eyes and somehow it went in. It’s just one of those plays where Simmons is the only one who can make those.”
On the job that the relievers did tonight, all but one of whom were rookies
“They did great. There were a lot of high-pressure situations. At the end, after the ninth inning, I think they’d left 12 guys on. So there were guys on almost every single inning and they were able to wiggle out of those situations and keep the score 2-1 and got us a win.”
On getting just enough hits to win it
“That’s the name of the game. The Phillies and the Bravos are not going to put up a lot of runs. It’s all going to come down to the bullpen. Our bullpen stepped up tonight and got us the win.”
Nice to stay ahead of those guys in the standings?
“Yeah. I mean, we’re to the point now where I don’t want to lose 100 games. We don’t want to lose 100 games. They don’t want to lose 100 games. It’s kind of like a battle right now. We’ve got two more games (against them). I don’t want to come in last.”
**WILLIAMS PEREZ (through translator Alex Cotto)
What was working best for you tonight?
“All the pitches were working for me today. The sinker was doing what I needed it to, and the changeup really got me out of some (hitters) counts, I was able to get some punchouts that way.”
On being able to work out of trouble last few starts the way he did before the 5-week DL stint
“I feel like I’m back where I was before the injury occurred. Everything’s starting to feel better. My body feels better and my mechanics — I feel like everything’s on the same page.”
On the 13-pitch strikeout of Darin Ruf in first inning, after eight consecutive foul balls and then a strike-3 foul tip
“I was throwing everything at him, everything I had in the arsenal. In the end I decided to go with the slider and see if it would work. I was either going to strike him out or give him a base on balls.”
