Braves quotes from Julio Teheran, Justin Upton, Tommy La Stella and manager Fredi Gonzalez after Monday’s 6-2 loss to the Dodgers.
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On the poor defensive performance, and whether a couple of plays that weren't made could've made things different
“At the end of the day Julio’s going to get a loss, and I thought he pitched better than the numbers are going to show. Tomorrow morning guys are going to wake up and look at the box score and say Julio got beat up pretty good, but I didn’t see that. You’re right — there’s a (ground) ball there and you can’t assume a double play but in the major league level, most guys, a lot of guys turn that, 99.9 percent do. And there wasn’t anything other than we just missed the ball. I’m not blaming Boni (Bonifacio) or anything like that. I’m just saying, I think at the end of the day Julio pitched a lot better than what the numbers show.
“And then we didn’t swing the bat — we didn’t swing the bat until late. Correia comes in and what, we got four hits off him, five hits off him? And we only get one run, so that’s the game right there.”
On that ugly eighth inning
“Yeah. (We didn’t) throw the ball over for strikes. We had some miscommunication on some signs there with Jaime (and Gattis), with the multiple signs at second base. It’s one of those things that the game got away from us there.”
On adjusting the lineup and if there’s any reason for optimism in the offense
“We see pretty good bats against the Nationals against Strasburg. You see pretty good at-bats against Gio Gonzalez. You see some good at-bats. You see some good games at times and you see a team that won 97 games last year, 96 games last year and it’s the same group of guys. And they’re fighting. They’re fighting and we’re fighting and it’s not there every day.
“It’s just one of those things. I don’t know if it’s the lineup — sleepless nights trying to figure out where and who and that kind of stuff. But we’ll go back out there tomorrow and get some good at-bats. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen guys keep the line moving and then we haven’t done that here in the last couple weeks.”
Is it frustrating to see things fall through for your lineup when the other team’s hits seem to get through?
“Well yeah, and that’s baseball. I think Julio gave up two hits, two of them to Correia. I think it was only a couple that were really hit hard. I think Gonzalez had one and then there in the eighth inning Kemp might’ve got one there in the gap. But other than that it was balls going through the infield and that kind of stuff. But anyway, we’ve still got to score runs.”
On Tommy La Stella’s hamstring cramp being minor
“Yeah, I think so. I think that was probably my fault, more precaution than it was anything else. He kind of pulls up there a little bit and we went and asked him to run a little bit and he grabbed it again. And I said you know what, I don’t want to take a chance here. If it’s something minor I want to keep it minor. I don’t want to leave him in the game and all of the sudden it becomes something more severe. We’ll evaluate him tomorrow. (From) everything that Bubba (trainer Jeff Porter) told me after the game today, I think he could play tomorrow.”
On bringing Juan Jaime in (and taking out Russell after facing one batter)
“I just wanted to bring a guy who could get somebody out, a guy that’s got a big arm, a power arm there, and put him in the position where he could be successful.”
**JUSTIN UPTON
Any reason to believe this offense can/will improve?
“Well, we got hot last year. We did play well last year. We just haven’t clicked on all cylinders yet. Hopefully it’s coming soon.”
On offense not getting timely hits
“We’ll get a couple of guys on and we haven’t gotten that big hit consistently yet, so hopefully it’s coming soon.”
On Correia tonight
“He mixed his pitches up and he didn’t miss in the middle of the plate too many times. Usually you get hurt when you’re missing over the plate, and when you stay on the corners you’re usually alright, so he’s good enough pitching on the white part of the plate.”
Teheran’s performance better than maybe numbers will indicate?
“He gave us a chance to win. What did he give up, five runs? We scored one. That’s the bottom line, we scored one run and they scored three off of him. He did a great job of keeping us in the ballgame. We just didn’t score.”
Frustrating seeing the offense struggle like this so often so deep into the season?
“It can be frustrating. I don’t think anybody in this clubhouse is too frustrated yet, but obviously we want to get better. We just haven’t. When you start getting frustrated in the game, that’s when you start trying too hard and things can really go south. So we’ve got to keep ourselves nice and relaxed. Have smarter at-bats, more professional at-bats, and we can break out of this thing, it’s just a matter of time.”
**JULIO TEHERAN
On whether it’s frustrating to give up hits to the pitcher leading to runs
“Yeah, it’s a little frustrating right there. I never thought the pitcher is going to get a base hit off me. I tried to pitch to him and he got me twice.”
On if was tough to put it behind him when the defense failed to execute double plays
“Yeah, it’s something that I can’t control. I know as soon as I throw the ball I can’t control the rest. I tried to make better pitches than what I did. When I got in trouble, I couldn’t make (them).”
On how he felt at the end of his outing as compared to the beginning
“I felt a little frustrated but I know that’s part of the game sometimes. You are throwing a great game and at the end it’s a bad game. But that’s part of the game and that’s something I’ve been learning.”
On what it’s been like the past couple weeks for the team
“We are trying to get back. I know we have been in bad situations but we have been battling and fighting the whole time, trying to win games. Every time we get here it is a new game, a new day and we try to win that game.”
On if he had some bad luck when he gave up three runs in the sixth inning
“I don’t want to call it bad luck. That’s part of the game. It’s a situation I didn’t face at the beginning of the game. Right there I got in a little bit of trouble and I tried to get out but I couldn’t.”
**TOMMY LA STELLA
Was leaving the game in the second inning (hamstring cramp) just precautionary?
“Absolutely. When it happened, it was just kind of an awkward step. I was anticipating making a dive but the ball was hit a lot harder than I thought and I had to stop myself and kind of felt it. It didn’t really feel like a cramp, which is why we were concerned. But after coming back here and doing all the tests and stretching and strengthening, it was just a cramp.”
How does it feel now?
“No problems.”
Will you play tomorrow?
“Yeah, unless I wake up with some unexpected soreness or anything like that I should be good to go tomorrow.”
You’ll just drink lots of fluids, that kind of thing?
“Yeah, I guess so. Cramping doesn’t typically happen in the beginning of the game, which I thought was weird. But it is what it is.”
