—Quotes compiled by Michael Cunningham
**FREDI GONZALEZ**
On the team’s comeback
“Jason (Heyward) got on base there, (Freddie) Freeman with the double. We feel like we had opportunities after being down 5-1 the entire game. It’s happened a couple times this series where they got an extra run in the ninth. Down two runs instead of one is a whole different game. I thought we had some good at-bats against (Roberto) Hernandez. We were patient. We just didn’t push anything across. Dee Gordon beat us. He got on base four times and scored four times. He’s probably the most traditional lead-off hitter I’ve seen in a while, a guy who can get on base, bunt, walk and create some havoc with his legs.”
Aaron Harang hasn’t struggled much this year was this just one of those days for him
“I think so. He gave us everything he had. Sometimes you match up better with some teams than you do with others. But he minimized the damage. I thought (David) Hale came in there with the bases loaded and did a nice job turning a double play. And then the bullpen kept us right there to hang around. We had an opportunity. I really, really like the effort of our club. We didn’t give up. We didn’t give up at-bats. We had a chance. They had to bring their closer in. Two games this series he had a multiple-out save. That’s a good thing for us.”
You brought in Avilan to get out lefties, what do you think of his performance
“Well, you know what, we will keep evaluating. The bunt base hit by Dee Gordon, that’s a tough one to evaluate. Left-lefty matchup with a bunt is really not fair. He just left the ball up over the plate with (Adrian) Gonzalez and he did a nice job with (Carl) Crawford.”
You do want to evaluate him with left-lefty matchups
“Yeah, and really it’s not evaluating. We sent him down to get fixed and throw some breaking balls. We did see that with Crawford. He made Crawford real uncomfortable.”
On if Justin Upton’s hamstring injury is not serious
“I hope not. We will check him out tomorrow when we get him back in here.”
On Freddie Freeman swinging the bat well
“He’s swinging it. Jason Heyward got on four times, stole a base, made a hell of a catch in right field. Simmons came back from his sprained ankle and has gotten a couple of big hits in situations.
On if he will stick with Heyward and Emilio Bonifacio one-two in the lineup
“It all depends on the two hole. It could be a number of different people. But I like Jason at the top.”
**FREDDIE FREEMAN**
On the Braves’ rally
“We keep fighting. We are not going to give up. We are still in this thing. We are still battling. We put together some great (at-bats) at the end of the game we just came up short.”
On not being frustrated
“If you get frustrated you are just going to go out there and be bad all the time. I think if we keep the frustration out of it and keep going out there and grinding out at-bats sooner or later it will start going our way. We’ve had some balls hit hard that haven’t fallen in but we’ve got 41 games left and we can still can make something of this if we keep grinding and keep battling.”
**AARON HARANG**
On his outing
“You’ve got a guy like Dee who’s kind of trying to make things happen with his speed. All he’s really got to do is put the ball on the ground to make things happen. It seemed like every pitch I threw came back over the middle of the plate. They got some hits on curveballs that were just got out of the reach of (fielders). It’s just one of those days. When you don’t have your best stuff and you can’t locate your fastball it’s hard to establish your other pitches. It was putting me behind in the count early on and a couple walks ended up hurting me.”
On if he could tell he didn’t have his best stuff early
“Usually can tell and those are the days you just try to battle. The guys came out and tried to battle and come back with a good, strong effort to rally but it just came up short. If I can eliminate a couple of those runs, maybe via not (issuing) a walk or changing speed, a better pitch than I did, maybe we would have been in this game.”
You haven’t struggled like this since your last day game, is there any kind of link there?
“No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just, you are not going to go out and be sharp every single time. I think it’s just kind of coincidental that it happened on day games. You can’t put an excuse on it. Noon games are definitely more difficult to prepare for especially after a night game, compared to a one o’clock game. But it’s one of those things, that’s what baseball is about is getting adjusted to our schedule and make things work when you need to. I wasn’t able to do that today. I’ve just got to forget about this one and move forward.”
