Braves quotes from Freddie Freeman, Mike Minor and manager Fredi Gonzalez after Sunday’s 4-3 win over the A’s.
FREDI GONZALEZ
On Braves responding in big situation
“For me, it all starts with the pitching. We’ve had some great pitching this series. Mikey (Minor) had a terrific game. He really did. The only to (bad) balls were to (Nate) Freiman and he wears out left-handed pitching. Mikey was outstanding. Big two runs by Justin (Upton) and (Chris Johnson) to get us back after they scored a run. (Evan) Gattis, we did a lot of good things today.”
On Minor gaining confidence after pitching out of first-inning jam
“I thought that was big. I talked earlier … it’s confidence with him. He gets out of jams like that or he builds into the game and the tougher the game, a lot of the game goes and the more confidence he gets. Keep building on this start, like we did the last start, and keep going forward with him.”
On building on last start
“Now we have to keep running him out there every five days. I feel good. I feel confident. Today, I think he threw some of his best breaking balls. His secondary pitchers were very, very good. He has five, six, seven more starts. We are going to need him. We are going to need him rolling to get us where we want to go.”
On whether A’s series surpasses Angels series as season’s best
“Maybe, because we swept them. We only won two out of three against the Angels. We pitched really well this series. Yes, I guess the one that is fresher in your mind is probably better. I thought we had a hell of a homestand, coming in here facing three division leaders in their respective divisions and we come out of it 6-4.”
FREDDIE FREEMAN
On well-pitched games and timely hitting before going on road
“That’s what we’ve been looking for the last three weeks and it finally came this weekend. It’s the right time and we got our confidence back up going out on the road against teams that we need to play well against. It’s going to be to a tough road trip that we need to take care of business on.”
On performance of Mike Minor
“That is the Mike Minor of old right there. Being able to throw that two-seamer just like (Alex Wood) does to right-handers, freezing inside pitches, back-door sliders. He was on tonight. He made two mistakes and luckily they were solo shots and we were able to get enough runs with Justin (Upton) and Chris (Johnson) tonight.”
On Minor gaining confidence
“You could definitely see it from the last start. He carried it over right into tonight. He gave up that home run early and he didn’t let that bother him at all. He kept going and throwing strikes all night and kept us in it.”
MIKE MINOR
On getting out of the first inning
“I started off pretty bad. I didn’t have any feel for the pitches. I felt like after that I settled in and mixed some pitches with (catcher Evan Gattis).We talked about it coming in and got in a rhythm. … I really wanted to pound the zone and I was missing. They weren’t going to swing early, I felt like, and later on we got a good rhythm going.”
On what made him effective
“I guess just bouncing back and forth and we worked up. Later in the counts we threw fastballs up and it changed their eye level. Curveballs later on in the dirt. It’s just a combination of left and right, up and down.”
On whether getting out of second and sixth innings would have been different weeks ago
“I feel like I’m in a different mindset going out there. I really don’t feel like anything bothers me anymore. I just want to go after hitters. If things happen, I want to pick up my teammates. I feel like they pick me up all the time, double plays and catching balls on the warning track. If anything happens now I just want to pick my guys up.”
On sweep of A’s
“It’s huge. For Oakland to come in here and realistically we want to get two out of three probably and then we sweep them. It’s big.”
On whether the level of confidence in clubhouse is greater after sweep
“I think it’s the same. We are clicking. Maybe it’s a new team coming into town that we haven’t face. I just feel like we’ve always had the confidence. I don’t feel like anybody is down. We played some close games. Finally they went our way.”
On whether he can be a key down the stretch
“I think everybody is. I think that’s what you guys talk about with me being one starter who is struggling. I can definitely help out every fifth day without the other games I was just trying to get through five innings and now if I can give the team six or seven innings and give the team some quality starts, yeah I could be a key piece. But I think everybody is.
