Braves quotes after 7-3 loss to the Mets on Thursday at Turner Field.
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Shelby Miller’s fourth inning
“The check-swing by Kelly Johnson, you can’t really do anything about that. He had two of those against him today. And then (Kevin) Pawlecki and then (Bartolo) Colon gets three runs. Other than that, he gave us a good opportunity. You can’t saying this about him. We fought back and got within (two) runs and they just kept adding runs against our bullpen. We just couldn’t come back from that.”
On at-bats vs. Colon
“I thought we had really, really good at-bats. I know we had some opportunities against him. We had some people on base and we couldn’t break through. He’s a veteran guy. I hope our young guys that re pitching are watching him. He commands his fastball both sides of the plate in and out, up and down. Changes speeds. And he throws the ball over the plate. There is nothing tricky about him other than he’s got some movement on his fastball. He gets deep in the ballgame and he gives his team a good chance to win. It’s not about throwing 99 mph or having a nasty split. He knows how to pitch and he commands his pitches.”
On being motivated to play spoiler
“No question. From here on out I think we owe it to the Washington Nationals and the wild card and every team in our league to put the best team out there every single night and compete.”
**SHELBY MILLER
On if he gets frustrated by the winless streak
“You would think so but you’ve got to go out there and keep grinding.”
On trying to play spoiler
“That’s not our goal is to ruin somebody’s season. You are just trying to show up and beat your opponent, whoever that is. We are not trying to spoil anyone’s season. I don’t even know what that means. I’ve never heard that kind of term, ‘spoil somebody’s season.’ We are going out there and trying to get wins not for anybody but ourselves. Trying to win for the team. Obviously we are struggling. We are trying to play for the fans and stuff like that. But as far as trying to beat other guys in the playoffs or stuff like that, we are trying to beat our opponent whoever it is that day.”
**ANDRELTON SIMMONS
On Colon
“Good ole Colon. He comes right at you. He puts a little movement on that two-seam (fastball). We hit a couple balls hard but right at people. He kept throwing strikes. He got the ground ball when he needed to.”
On Colon getting better with age
“He’s a smart guy. He knows how to pitch. He’s been around. He knows he has to throw strikes so he comes in, pounds the zone, gets a lot of ground balls and gets outs.”
On Miller
“Started off good. Then they got a couple hits in a row. They didn’t spread them out. They got on base, they got them in. He looked good. His curveball looked good. His fastball looked good. But they hit him. He might have made a couple mistakes and they were on top of them.”
On Miller’s winless streak
“You know how good he is so you think, ‘Today is the day.’ Today is the day he’s going to get his deserved win. But it’s fortune sometimes. It’s so bad right how.”
On playing the spoiler
“Nobody wants to go out there and lose day in and day out. I feel like we’ve been playing better the last couple days but the Mets are a good team. They have good pitchers. They’ve got really good hitters. But we are going to go out there and compete every day. We are going to try to take away as many games from every team we face.”
