WASHINGTON — Braves quotes from Alex Wood, Jason Heyward, Andrelton Simmons, Gerald Laird and manager Fredi Gonzalez after Sunday's 2-1 loss to the Nationals in a road-trip finale.
** ALEX WOOD
On getting past the rough start to the game
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a rough start; I don’t know if the ball got out of the infield (in the three-hit first inning). But I felt good, I got my off-speed working; my secondary stuff was probably the best it’s been all spring. I just made some good pitches, and then one bad one there at the end. That’s how it goes sometimes.”
On fastball to Desmond
“We tried to go hard in to start and left it up and over the plate. The worst pitch I threw all day, and he made me pay. That’s what they do.”
On what he was doing to retire 18 of 19 batters before the homer
“Like I said, I thought my secondary stuff was really good today. My fastball command was a little off, which isn’t typical for me – when my fastball command is off it usually affects my secondary stuff pretty drastically. But fortunately I was able to have my changeup and curveball going pretty good, and just made that one bad pitch (to Desmond).”
On the first inning
“He made a good bunt; we were playing back, not really thinking he was going to bunt to lead off the game. And then just a couple of weird plays in the infield; that’s baseball, you know? I think we’ve all seen that more times than we wish. Just kind of how it goes sometimes.”
Does low offensive output put more pressure on starters?
“No more pressure than usual. I mean, when you’re up here you’ve got to go out and throw well to stay here. That’s enough pressure as it is, there’s not really any extra added pressure. You’ve just got to go out and competer and give these guys a chance to win every time out. If you do that, you’ve got to be satisfied with your performance.”
On going 4-2 with two series wins on the trip
“I think we had a great road trip. Everyone is looking forward to going back home for a week, I can tell you that. It was a tease being there for a day-and-a-half last week and I know everybody’s real excited to finally get back home.”
Going back to the pitch to Desmond, what made it your worst pitch of the day?
“Location, for sure. Anytime you’re that deep into the game it’s kind of hard to say it was bad pitch selection, especially since me and G (Gerald Laird) had been on the same page the entire game. So I mean, when you look at anything it comes down to whether you throw the pitch where you want it to be or not. I usually try not to have too many bad misses, and that was definitely a bad miss, for sure. And that’s what happens, they make you pay when you miss bad.”
Did you know right away it was trouble when you threw it?
“Yeah, he spun me around about three times when it came off the bat. But yeah, I mean, I knew right when it left my hand that it wasn’t going to be a very good outcome.”
On the pitching staff’s great start to the season
“It’s still early. Guys are feeling good, I think we’ve done a real good job so far. But it’s a long season, so it’s one of those things where it’s great to get off to a good start like that as a group. And after that, you’ve just got to come in and do it on a consistent basis.”
**JASON HEYWARD
“You’re not going to win every game, but you want to be in every game. So far that’s what we’ve done.”
“A 4-2 road trip is a good one, especially against two teams like that that play really well at their (ballparks).”
Were the missed opportunities more about good Nats pitching or you guys, or a little of both?
“A little of both. We pitched real well also. Woody threw a great game. One pitch right there, Desmond put a swing on it and got him, and that’s going to happen. A 2-1 ballgame. We didn’t come out on top but we had opportunities to win. We played well enough to win the game. That’s all you can ask for.”
On the pitching staff’s fast start despite all the injuries
“They’ve been outstanding. We know we can’t control injuries. We know we can’t control who’s on the roster. We know what we have is what we’ve got, and we make the best of that. This week was a good week. Everybody came in and did their part. We played some good defense, the pitchers threw well, and we tried to get some timely hits.”
On going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position
“It’s not going to happen every time, everyone’s not going to come through every time. But if you at least have the opportunity, more times than not I like the odds.”
Did your stiff neck bother you, you favor it at all at the plate?
“No. I just went out there and battled, just like the next guy.”
**GERALD LAIRD
On the rivalry
“Every team in our division has gotten a lot better, but some people are counting on us two (teams) to be there at the end, and it was a good game. It was an all-around good game. They scored one more run than us. I think we really only made one mistake. The run we gave up in the first, a couple of balls fall in, ground balls in the infield and a bunt obviously, but really I think the only mistake he made was to (Desmond), and he hit it in the seats. Just one of those things. It’s a tough loss.”
“(Wood) pitched a heck of a game. He had really good stuff today. Desmond’s a good hitter, and when you make mistakes he’s going to make you pay. We were looking to get in there (inside fastball) to kind of set up the whole at-bat, to go off-speed on the next pitches. It just kind of crept back over the plate, and you know the hitter that Desmond is. He’s a good hitter for a reason.”
Still a good trip?
“Oh yeah, 4-2, especially with the injuries we’ve had. We had some young guys come up and step up and pitch real well. We have some guys in the bullpen pitching well, we have our starters with Hale and obviously Woody in his two starts. We knew what we were going to get from Julio, and from what I’ve seen we’ve got guys that are going out there and competing, throwing strikes, and they don’t look scared out there. They look like they’re in control.”
On losing game when Wood pitched so well
“It really upsets me, because he battled. He had really good stuff. After that first inning we cruised pretty much through the innings. He had all three of his pitches working. He was working in and out. That’s a good lineup over there, so he’s got to use this one to build off of. He threw the ball really well today and quieted a good lineup. He only made one mistake, and it beat us. But for the most part, build off of it, and I like what I’ve seen so far.”
**ANDRELTON SIMMONS
“Two wins here, and you want to win those games in the division. So we’ll ve got to feel good about those two wins in the series.”
Beat yourself up over the two groundouts that stranded five runners?
“Yeah, a little bit. Not too much. I mean, I’m not going to be perfect. I’m not going to think too much about it. I’m going to let it go. But yeah, you want to get those clutch hits.”
On Wood
“One mistake, the one Desmond hit. But he was solid the whole game. We didn’t score enough runs for him. If we would have done a better job with runners in scoring position today, we would have had a better result.”
On the first-inning ground ball that Uggla fielded in front of him
“I thought it was going to be right over the bag, and since I was playing a little pull, I thought Uggla was going to get it. It was right in-between. I stuttered.”
So it wasn’t like you were reaching, preparing to field it?
“No, no. I had an idea he might’ve flipped it to me. But … I got out of the way.”
On the team’s road trip
“We’re playing pretty good defense overall. Just got to swing the bats a little better. That will come.”
On the pitching staff
“What else can you ask? Two runs at most, right? You’ve got to win (with that). Especially with this team, with our offense, the expectations that we have for ourselves. We’ve got to do better.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Alex Wood’s performance
“He gave us a great opportunity to win the game. It was a shame that he becomes the loser of this game because he was dominant, really. That’s just the way it goes. We didn’t score runs when we had some opportunities. We only got one, and they got one more run than we did. And I told you guys at the beginning of this series that there were going to be about 15 or 16 more like this (between these teams), one-run game, somebody makes a mistake or somebody blinks, you’re either going to end up winning a game or losing one.”
Feel like there’s so much pressure on pitchers because of lack of offense?
“No, not at all. I mean, that’s their job. Their job is to do what they’re doing. Both losses, we’ve only given up two runs – 2-nothing in Milwaukee and 2-1 here. But that’s just the way it goes. The offense will pick it up, I’m sure, down the road. There’ll be a stretch where our pitching staff is going to need the offense to pick (the staff) up.
“But overall, 4-2 road trip, two games that we lost were great-pitched ballgames. And so, day off tomorrow and go get ‘em Tuesday for the home opener.”
On Alex Wood going back out to warm up before the eighth inning, then coming out
“I was just seeing what kind of matchup I was going to get.”
More on the stranded runners, missed opportunities
“We had second-and-third and no outs and only got one out of it. And you had the right guys at the plate, you feel like even in the ninth inning with Jason against Soriano there, (runners on) first and second … you feel like you’ve got the right guys at the plate and eventually we’ll get those guys going.”
