WASHINGTON — Braves quotes from Matt Wisler, Jace Peterson, Kelly Johnson and Fredi Gonzalez after Thursday’s loss and series sweep at the hands of the Nationals.
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On defensive mistakes, 2 unearned runs charged to Wisler (along with 4 earned)
“That might be the first game we played like that this whole year. It comes after a real good first two games against these guys. Today we didn’t give young Wis a chance. Put him in situations where he was always in trouble, never gave him a clean inning, an opportunity to get out of a jam.
“We weren’t real pretty to watch today, let’s put it that way.”
Between mistakes and the Nationals' hot hitters, a perfect storm of sorts?
“It’s tough. Again, it comes right at the last game after a real good first two games that we end up losing. You can’t give a good club like this opportunities, give ‘em outs, give them extra bases, because they’re going to take advantage of it. They got really, really good pitching, and they’ve got some guys who can swing the bats that are pretty hot right now.”
On the 41 1/3 innings scoreless-innings streak by Nationals starters
“That’s pretty good pitching. They’ve got some good pitchers on that staff, there’s no ifs, buts or maybes there. They’ve got some quality pitchers they run at you every single night, and you can get to those long streaks.”
Was Fister as good as his numbers today, or was that partly not having Freeman, Uribe, Simmons in lineup?
“No, I think he was as good as the numbers. He throws the ball over the plate 85, 86 miles an hour with some cuts, some sink. He was as good as we’ve seen him.”
Did you think the mistakes added any pressure on Wisler?
“When you have a young kid on the mound, you’ve got to give him every opportunity to get him through clean innings. Till he gets that experience of covering up mistakes, covering up errors. Right now, he’s not there. The other night it was his first start, we played really good defense and helped him. We didn’t do that today.”
**MATT WISLER
On Nats being too hot to be able to afford making mistakes against, pitching or defensively
“I just didn’t execute today. My fastball command wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be. The ball just stayed up. The Desmond home run, a 1-2 or 0-2 fastball, it’s supposed to be down and away. I just left it up. Just made some bad pitches today.”
Could you tell early that it might be a long day?
“No, I mean I got through the first inning relatively easy. The double (single and error), that was on the ground, they didn’t hit the ball hard other than that in that inning. After that I struggled a little bit. I just didn’t have it, didn’t mix pitches as well as I probably should have. I just didn’t keep them off-balance.”
You knew it wouldn’t always go as smoothly as it did your first game, obviously?
“Yeah, you’re not going to be on your game every game. These guys are the best hitters in the world. I wasn’t on today. They beat me.”
How much do you think the defensive mistakes early contributed to it?
“No, it was just me not executing. I mean, it comes down to me, at the end of the day. Can I execute the pitch to get out of the inning? Today I didn’t as well as I should.”
“Take this and learn from it. Think about it a little bit tonight, and just move on and get better.”
**JACE PETERSON
On getting swept, Nats pitchers allowing just two runs in series
“Just didn’t hit. Me personally, I didn’t hit. Just a rough series.”
How tough is it for the offense without Freeman, or is that just an excuse?
“I mean, he’s a great player. We’d love to have him, he makes a big difference for us. But at the end of the day, he’s not here and we’re still capable, we just need to play.”
On Wisler
“I thought he threw good. We didn’t play very good today, and hopefully tomorrow we can come back and play better.”
More on Wisler
“He threw well in his first outing, he threw well today. We just didn’t make plays behind him, and didn’t score runs.”
**KELLY JOHNSON
On Fister’s performance
"He's good. He mixes it up, gets good movement, that cross-body, and we just didn't hit. Just the energy and kind of the way we started, on defense more than anything, was unfortunate when you say typically you want the way you play on the field to speak for itself in a good way. In this case, it was kind of letting it speak for itself in a bad way. Not a lot to say. It was pretty ugly."
Did you think the defensive mistakes early contributed to Wisler struggling?
“Hard to say, you’d have to ask him. I don’t know if I buy into that. I mean, he’s still making his pitches. He got some ground balls, he got some hops that just didn’t hop our way. At the same time, we’ve got to make those plays and help him out.”
Can too much be made of getting swept again by Nats in a series in June?
“For sure, it’s always too much (made of it) till you get to the last six to eight weeks. Just see where it falls at that point. At this point, just trying to win as many games as possible and stay in the hunt, hopefully kind of weather the storm and get Freddie back, start playing baseball again.”
