Braves quotes from Alex Wood, Justin Upton and manager Fredi Gonzalez after Sunday’s 3-1 win over the Nationals.
ALEX WOOD
On going out for eighth inning
“The inning before when we got (Anthony) Rendon to pop out, we weren’t exactly pitching to him and we got him on a check swing and then we got a little more aggressive and ended up getting him to fly out. We were going to pitch around him and (Jayson) Werth and get to the lefty. We ended up getting Rendon out and I had a good idea I was going to go out there and at least face the lefty in (Adam) LaRoche.”
On career-high 12 strikeouts
“Any time you play the Nationals, no matter when during the season it is, there is always a little extra adrenalin. They are our biggest rivals. It’s always fun playing them. We always play good ball games.”
On what was working so well to get the strikeouts
“I thought I commanded all three (pitches) pretty well tonight of the most part. My breaking ball was working pretty good and also my sinker was working pretty good too.”
On going out for eighth inning after 114 pitches
“Not surprised. I didn’t know how many pitches I was out to be honest. I knew where they were in the lineup and I had a good idea I was going to face Werth and LaRoche and maybe if I got the first two guys I would have stayed in for one more but I was at least going to face the first two.”
On maintaining velocity
“I’ve been working on some things. I’ve gotten into some bad habits. I was just trying to stay behind the ball tonight. Fortunately, it ended up working out.”
On when knew it would be special night
“I never really look at it like that. I knew after (Ian) Desmond put that charge in the ball and hit that home run and we came in and answered right back, that’s when I got a little extra pep in my step and I really felt like we were going to pull it out. And I felt like the control was kind of back on our side and back on my side as well. That was definitely a big home run by Justin (Upton). Jason (Heyward) fought one off and had a hustle play and beat it out to score that second run and sometimes that’s the way it goes. I’m glad it happened.”
On sense of confidence playing the Nationals
“I don’t know if a sense of confidence is the right word. I think the competiveness that comes out from our ball club as a whole when we play them, I think it plays to our advantage. It’s almost like a playoff game no matter when we play them. There are some gamers in here who really enjoy that challenge and rising to the occasion. I think that’s the biggest factor for us.”
Was there a biggest out of the night?
“Coming into the game, they didn’t submit their lineup until pretty late, and I thought (Kevin) Frandsen was going to be in there too. Two of my biggest focuses were Rendon, watching video on Rendon, and also Frandsen. They’ve swung it well against me just seeing the at-bats they’ve taken against me. Those were my two biggest focuses. When the pitcher was coming up (in the seventh) I knew Frandsen was coming in. I had already written some stuff down and had a good idea of what I wanted to do. He was pretty aggressive. I figured he would be and I actually ended up leaving one over the plate and he popped it up. Those were two of my biggest focuses.
JUSTIN UPTON
On home run being 1,000th hit and 500th RBI
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Freddie Freeman decided that every single day he was going to remind me how close I was. I finally got it done tonight.”
On winning series from Nationals
“You always want to win series but coming off the stretch we had and not playing well, to come in and play the first-place team and take two of three is a good start.”
On performance of Wood
“He was good. He pounded the zone. He did a good job of diffusing the situation when he got in a little bit of trouble and did a great job.”
On Wood stepping up in matchups against Jose Fernandez, Zach Grienke and Felix Hernandez
“He is a confident guy. He wants those match ups. He did a great job against Grienke matching him pitch for pitch. Then came out tonight and faces a first-place team and does it again. We are excited to have them on our side.”
On importance of win
“It could have swung in their direction majorly if we would have dropped this one tonight. We battled and put enough runs up and hopefully we can build some momentum off of it.”
FREDI GONZALEZ
How pleased were you with Alex Wood’s performance tonight?
“He pitched great. Competes. Made some pitches. We get him behind the eighth where right off the get-go we boot that double play ball and he gets first and second, nobody out and facing the middle of the lineup there and he gets dangerous hitters anyway and punches out the side. Our club, he gives up a homerun to Desmond and our club, Justin came back and tied it back up with his feat that it was an unbelievable feet. What is it, 1,000 hits, 500 RBIs all in the same swing? That’s something you can talk about for a long time. And then we were able to add on some runs. Jason Heyward putting the ball in play there and beating Gonzalez to the bag and it was good. It was a good game. Gattis adding on there. But you’re right; I think Woody was the player of the game. He made some terrific pitches when he had to and I don’t know if we’ve ever taken him this far as far as 124 pitches. It was just going to be his game. We we’re going to take him as far as we could because we didn’t want to go with anybody else. And then Carpenter came in the situation and got a one-pitch groundball double play and that was a big out.”
Why the move to take Wood out at that time?
“Because I think he was done. I think the at-bat against Werth took him out of it little bit and against LaRoche, I felt like that was his last one, last hitter. And we didn’t want to put him in a situation where he’s going to be unsuccessful or in jeopardy of losing the game or even injuring himself. But he did a nice job getting LaRoche out.”
Winning the series must have been nice after a tough road trip
“Yeah, it is a bounce-back. It’s a good weekend, solid weekend. First and foremost we got two out of three and we gain a game and we still see these guys two more times, two more series. So it’s still a lot of baseball but it’s nice to bounce back and nice to play well in the first weekend back after zero for eight.”
Have we reached that point where we can expect Wood to rise to the occasion?
“I have because we’ve seen it year. I mean this guy, I don’t even know what his record is but he goes out and gives a run or two and he’s lost a couple games that way. But the thing you like about him is he competes. He competes and he’ll be here tomorrow. He’ll beat me here tomorrow and his work ethic is second to none. His preparation for his next start is second to none. It’s nice to see a young man that’s only pitched in the big leagues maybe a little bit more than a year now be able to do all that stuff.”
You’ve had a tough time with double plays but Jason Heyward’s went your way.
“It went our way and Jason runs better than average and he beat him to the bag. There was no play there and that’s what we needed. We get in the situation where you’ve got first and second and one out and we go strikeout, strikeout and you’re going, ‘Oh, here we go. Here we go again.’ But our guys, they didn’t bow their heads they just battling them and that got three runs.”
So when Wood started the eighth inning it wasn’t necessarily about getting to LaRoche, it was more just about feeling how the inning goes?
“Yeah. If he doesn’t walk Werth, groundball, two pitches against LaRoche, I’ll let him have Desmond. But then you get to that point where if you’re going to let him have Desmond you’ve got to let him have Harper, so you get stuck. But I think after he walked Werth, I’m thinking, “OK. If you get us LaRoche I think we’ve got to go with somebody else,” because you start putting him in position where he’s not going to be successful.”
