**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Haren
“He was throwing that cutter. It was one of those things where when we took the pitch it was a strike and when we swung at, it was off the plate enough that he got us out. I think he had five or six innings where I don’t think he got into double digits in pitches. Later in the game we started working the at-bats a little better but he kept throwing that cutter away and to the right-handers and running the sinkers in. we were making quick outs.”
On Medlen
“I thought Medlen was outstanding. We make a play with the two outs there and it’s a 1-1 game and we still would be playing. It’s a situation where he gets the L but I thought he pitched better than that. For me he only gave up only one earned run and he gave us seven strong innings. Even with the three runs, you still feel pretty good that it was a good outing by our pitching staff. We split the series and I thought our pitchers did outstanding, our starters. They all got us late in the game. They were all quality starts and we split the series.”
Was cut fastball the difference for Haren?
“He commanded it a lot better than what we’ve seen. We know he’s got it but today he commanded it and we jumped on it early and we made quick outs and there was one point I looked up in the seventh and I don’t think he had reached 60 pitches or 65 pitches. But he had it going and when we did take the pitch, it was a strike and got behind in the count.”
On wanting to do more than split series
“We win the first two and we had a chance to win the series, and we pitch good enough to win the series and they pitch a little better. You’ve got to give them a little credit. Yesterday Zimmermann goes eight innings of shutout baseball and today Haren gives you eight innings of one-run baseball. But I feel good about our pitching. We pitched pretty darn good ourselves.”
Did Johnson say if the that ball spun?
“He came in and he said I straight booted that ball. It was off the end of the bat a little bit and it just kind of spun and got away from him a little bit. I’m sure in his mind he could probably make that play 99 out of 100 times.”
Was he distracted by the runner?
“No, I think sometimes you think the ball is hit harder than what it really is and maybe that’s what it was.”
** KRIS MEDLEN
On the play at third in 2nd inning (initially ruled 2-run error, changed to double)
“It had some funky spin. I thought that was a pretty big part of the game. I’m tired of doing interviews postgame saying, ‘I just kept us in the game.’ If I’d have cleaned it up from the get-to, I don’t give up any runs.”
On his performance
“I took what I was working on in-between starts into the start, and I was sitting there trying to work on stuff in the middle of a game. After that two-run inning, I sat down and told myself, just throw the damn ball. Everything kind of clicked for me after that. I got with Gat (Gattis) and said this is how it’s going to go. He called a great game. Just too many runs in the very beginning.”
On the early hits in first two innings
“You kick yourself any time you give up hits. But if you throw 88 and it’s over the plate, it’s going to get hit. Like I said, I hate doing the whole I-kept-us-in-the-game. But I cleaned it up and thought I threw some pretty good pitches out there, and battled my ass off like always.”
On his inconsistency
“That’s the way it’s been all year for me. I haven’t concentrated from pitch 1 to pitch 100. It’s frustrating, but I’ve shown some signs of my old self, or however you want to call it. But I just need to go out there and consistently hit my spots, and throw quality strikes, not just strikes.”
**DAN UGGLA
Frustrating to lose the last two like you did, after getting off to such a good start in series?
“Of course it’s frustrating. We didn’t have it these last two games. Zim pitched a great game yesterday, and Danny pitched a great game tonight. Our guys battled their butts off as well and pitched great games. We just didn’t give them any run support.”
On Haren’s effectiveness
“He was throwing strikes. Mixing in and out. That’s all he needed to do. He didn’t put anybody on base, didn’t make many mistakes, and normally when you do that you’re going to give yourself a chance to win.”
Was his cut fastball the difference?
“Yeah. Like I said, he was commanding it, pretty much doing whatever he wanted to do, mixing in some changeups and taking some off his fastball, putting some on. He did a really good job of pitching, keeping us off-balance.”
