Braves quotes after Sunday’s loss to Dodgers
— quotes compiled by Carroll Rogers and David O’Brien
**BRIAN McCANN
On what wasn’t going right with Julio
“Early, Carl hit a slider that hung up a little bit more than Julio wanted and put a good swing on it, and I tip my hat to the middle of their order. I mean they seem to be on every single pitch. It just didn’t turn out the way we wanted.”
On what you’re trying to do against Ramirez
“He’s locked in. I mean he’s covering both sides of the plate. I’ve played against him for a long, long time now and when he’s hot, he’s as good as it gets.”
Good fastball command early for Teheran, if not pinpoint later with breaking balls
“With two outs there, if we get out of that inning, maybe it’s a whole different ball game. You’ve got to tip your hat to Crawford for putting a good swing on it.”
On amount of faith team has Garcia
“We’ve got a lot of faith in him. He’s been there and done that. He’s pitched in every situation you can possibly pitch in, and we know what we have to do.”
On whether felt in control early
“Yeah, Julio came out with a really good fastball. We just didn’t get into a groove tonight. That’s all I’ve got to say. He’s a great pitcher with a tremendous future. He’s going to pitch at the top of the rotation for a long, long time.”
On if mishandling Crawford’s bunt affected Wood rest of that inning
“I don’t think so. It’s a play I think he makes but that’s not the reason we lost.”
On if still confident in ability to comeback, given all the comeback wins this season
“We’ve got come back tomorrow and expect to win, that’s what we do. Just like Game 2, we’ve got to come back and win. We know what the task at hand is and we plan on doing it.”
**JUSTIN UPTON
On how surprising it was not to seize control of game given aggressive start offensively:
“It was kind of surprising. Julio has thrown the ball for us well all year and he got off to a rough start. It was tough. And they got it rolling and started swinging the bats well. They’re a good ball club.”
On emotional swing now facing elimination on the road
“There’s no emotional swing. We know what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to win a ballgame, try to get it back to Turner Field and see what we can do in Game 5. Right now we have to worry about tomorrow.”
On what’s making Ramirez so successful
“He’s in one of those zones. You can’t make a mistake. Every time you make a mistake, he hits it. You’ve got to be pretty careful with him.”
On the atmosphere at Dodger Stadium
“I think for the most part our guys, we were pretty cool. We kept our head, we knew we needed to score runs and play good baseball. It was loud. It was loud at Turner Field. It’s a little different when you’re on the road, but I think we held up to it well. We just didn’t it done.”
On if anything changes in approach for Sunday
“We know we either win or go home. That’s the bottom line. It’s pretty clear cut. So we know we’ve got to come out and win a ballgame.”
On if Teheran got rattled or maybe just two-strike hits a problem
“He didn’t seem rattled to me. He just didn’t hit his spots. Against a team like this if you don’t hit your spots they’re going to capitalize on some of them. They just happened to capitalize on more of them than we wanted to. If he had got into a rhythm it might be a different game but they stayed on top of the mistakes and it cost us a little bit.”
On if team can draw on success vs. Nolasco
“Playoff baseball is playoff baseball. Anything can happen. So going into tomorrow obviously everybody’s faced him. We kind of know what he’s featuring. We’ve just got to execute.”
**JASON HEYWARD
On if Teheran not quite himself
“He’s young. He’s young and a new atmosphere for him, a playoff atmosphere. I feel like he threw well. He made some good pitches, but at the same time, if you leave some of the plate they’re going to get hit, especially by a good team that made it this far. He battled. He didn’t shy away from it. I’m proud of him for that. Didn’t have his best stuff this time.”
Will you guys draw from track record of being a comeback team all year?
“Whether we won tonight, tomorrow you can’t think about tonight’s game. They won tonight. They came out and played well at home their first game and we have to come out and make an adjustment tomorrow.”
On if Garcia’s experience lends some security
“Any experience helps, I feel like. And the fact that he has as much experience as he does, I feel like it goes a long way in this game. The name of the game for me in the playoffs is still how many runs you can keep off the board. And whoever does the best job of that each night is going to win.”
On home run late in game evidence you’re still coming at them
“We’re still coming regardless. But we don’t quit. I don’t think anybody expects us to quit. We haven’t quit all year, all season. The fact that they had to bring their closer in the game is still good for us and again we come out tomorrow and do what we have to do.”
On team’s past success vs. Nolasco:
“It’s a new team for him, new catchers and maybe new game-calling but at the same time, it’s good to see a familiar face.”
On how to regroup for Game 4
“Tonight is over with. Come back out tomorrow with the same mindset we did today and that’s to win the ballgame.”
On getting off to good start
“You don’t expect teams to quit, especially in their own ballpark. We know we jumped out early. That’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s our job, but at the same time in the playoffs you have to do what you can to keep runs off the board.”
On how Dodger Stadium plays
“To me it’s a little smaller out there in center than Turner Field. You run out of space out there quick. For me on the one play with Hanley, I felt like I was going after it, going after it, going after it, kind of ran out of space faster than I (normally do). Sometimes I’m stubborn, but not in a bad way. Just trying to make a play and stop the bleeding there.”
Overcoming adversity this season make you feel like you have been in this situation in a way? (facing elimination in Game 4):
“This year we’ve been in this situation. I feel like last year, the group that was with us, some of the guys who were in the Wild Card game. That was most definitely do-or-die. We’ve also shown this year so many times we can bounce back and we have guys step up, fill in, whether somebody goes down and gets hurt or we take a big blow by losing a series to a team we feel like we shouldn’t lose to. We have bounced back and we have fun, we look forward to each challenge.”
**FREDDY GARCIA (game 4 starter)
On what he learned watching Dodgers so far in series
“They’re real aggressive. They hit all the mistakes we made tonight. Hopefully we can come out and win tomorrow and go to a Game 5 at home. We’re going to play hard like we always do.”
**EVAN GATTIS
On the rollercoaster early in game
“We were down by two, and I still felt like were close to (getting back in it) with one swing of the bat. And I really felt like if we came back at that point, it would have been a totally different game than what happened. I don’t know. I hate to say that.
“It was a dog fight. I mean it was we score, they score, we score, they score. And then it kind of got out of hand a little bit.”
On Dodgers fans do the tomahawk chop and chant
“Someone asked me about that on the bench. Yeah, I heard it. But what do you expect?”
On bouncing back from this for Game 4, facing elimination
“I don’t think we’ll have a problem putting this behind us. I mean, it’s the same story all year – win the game today.”
On his misplay of Uribe bloop single in second inning
“I took a drop step, stopped, and then came in. Misread it.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
After Game 1 you said the emotions got the best of some of your players. Do you think that might have been the case with Julio?
“ I’m not sure. I think he just left some balls out over the plate, you know, and made some mistakes. And with this club, if you do that, you’re going to look down at a gas tank with a lighted match.
But, yeah, I don’t think the emotions or the crowd or anything had anything to do with it. I think we just had some mistakes.
You talked about having an offensive outfield with Gattis in there. I was curious what you thought of his performance tonight?
“He’s hitting .500 for the playoffs. Got three hits, and I don’t think you could ask anything more from him. He’s doing a nice job.”
Were you surprised how quickly it came unraveled after leading 2-0 early?
“Any time we made a mistake, or in that fourth inning Woody Crawford leads off a bunt right to him, and we don’t field the position. All of a sudden, instead of being down two runs, it’s a four run inning. After that mistake, later on in the game we hit Ellis, walked the other Ellis, and here comes Hanley again. It’s a club that you can’t make mistakes or you can’t have base runners, because they’ve got some guys in the middle of the lineup that can really, really hurt you.”
On all the leadoff hits they’re giving up
“The leadoff hits? I think what’s hurting us right now is if we walk a guy or make a fielding error or give them extra outs, you know, you get put in a tough position. They’ll put a big number up, which they had you take those two innings away, and it’s a decent ballgame. Anything can happen. So that’s the way it goes when you’re facing a pretty good lineup.
Tomorrow’s starting pitcher still as planned?
“Yeah, it’s Garcia.”
On Teheran not being able to put hitters away after getting two strikes
“The fastball command wasn’t there as we’ve seen it before with him. It’s just one of those things. When you do that or you’re not throwing the ball where you want to I think the home run to Crawford was a slider that just stayed out over the middle of the plate, and he got him there. But, you know, we’ll look at the tape and see exactly what it was tomorrow or later on tonight. But for me, he wasn’t as sharp as we’ve seen him before in the past.”
Does loss like this affect the team’s confidence, or just one of those games you forget about?
“You know what? It’s one of those games and you forget about it. I think if you look at the positive, I don’t know what it was, a nine run game in the ninth inning, they had to bring the closer in. So you always think that that’s a good thing. We didn’t roll over. We went out there and scored some runs, and they had to bring in Jansen. You know, we’ll build on that for tomorrow.”
**JULIO TEHERAN
What do you think the biggest difference was tonight? Did emotions get the best of you?
“I was a little excited about this game. I didn’t have my best, and I tried my best. It was just one of those games that you do everything, and the things don’t go as you expect.”
How disappointing was it for things to unravel so quickly after you got our of that jam in first inning
“Well, I wasn’t disappointed. I was just trying to get out of the difficult innings, and I tried to throw my pitches and made a couple of mistakes that I had to pay for.”
On having trouble putting guys away after getting ahead in counts tonight, like walking Ellis after being ahead 1-2
“Well, I felt the same thing. I feel like I was pulling a little bit, trying to do like trying to do too much, and that’s how I walked him. I was getting trouble with the ball away.”
