Clubhouse quotes from manager Fredi Gonzalez and several players following Tuesday's two losses to the Nationals in Washington.
Quotes after 4-0 loss in doubleheader nightcap
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On the loss
“Roark pitched well. You can’t take that away from him. But Freddy (Garcia) gave us every opportunity to win that ballgame. In a one-run game you feel like anything can happen. They added some runs there in the eighth inning. And even then against one of the top closers in the National League we end up getting runners on first and second with nobody out. We get an opportunity to put a number up; it’s a little different in 4-0 game than it would have been in a 1-0 or 2-0 game. But at least our club showed some fight there in the ninth inning.”
On Walden
“That’s his last two outings giving up home runs. I don’t know, maybe just a case of him not pitching in a while. He’s healthy. Maybe we just need to keep running him out there and get him back on track, to be the Walden that we had for most of the year until the groin injury. I’m thinking that’s the reason on that one. The velocity’s still good. The secondary pitches are still there. I think maybe it’s just a little rust with his command.”
Only one runner in scoring position until Elliot Johnson reached in eighth
“Elliot gets on, steals a base, and we didn’t get that run in. That could have been a tied ballgame, but at least we get a runner in scoring position. And you want to keep it at a one-run game, you bring the guy (Walden) that you want in that situation, and it just didn’t happen tonight for us.”
On Nats winning 10 of 11
“They’re playing good baseball. Up and down the lineup they’re swinging the bats, and getting good pitching. We need to just get going again ourselves. But you can’t take that away from them. You can’t sit here and deny that they’re playing good baseball.”
Braves feeling like you need to get the seemingly inevitable clinching over with?
“We need to start playing better baseball, start swinging the bats. I like where we’re at, our position. But there’s still baseball games to be played, and we’ve just got to get back on a roll again.”
**FREDDY GARCIA
On his performance, no win but have to be pleased with your work?
“I was trying to keep the game close so we could do something, score a couple of runs. But it didn’t happen today. We lost today, but we can win tomorrow, get a win here.”
On being on teams in this situation before with other teams
“Right now we just need to win four games. It’s hard. You need to be focused and concentrate on what you’re doing. A lot of guys get excited, but we’ve got to keep playing. We’ve got a lot of games to play. Hopefully we can win some.”
**ELLIOT JOHNSON
Does it feel like you just can’t get the hit or two needed to get some runs in?
“Overall it’s going to feel that way because we’re not getting many opportunities to score runs. I’m sure it’s going to look like that. It’s September, so all these games are going to feel like they matter more. But in the grand scheme of things, these games matter just as much as the ones in April. It’s just that it’s coming down to the crunch here. Everybody is ready to essentially clinch the division, but you’ve got to win games.”
And now trying to do it against a Nationals team fighting hard to stay alive
“We had the opportunity to keep their heads below water obviously, and we didn’t finish it up. There’s nothing you can do about it now, so we’ll come back and get this one tomorrow, and then we can go from there.”
**GERALD LAIRD
On Roark
“He wasn’t missing with any pitches over the plate, it seemed like. When he was going away, he was throwing that little two-seamer back door, and when he was coming in he was running that two-seamer in on your hands, and he had that little slider working. Tonight it seemed like he was hitting his spots and wasn’t making any mistakes. I know Freddie was saying he was starting it at him and running it back over. When he’s doing that it’s hard to pull the trigger.
“You don’t want to take any credit away from him. They guy pitched a good game tonight. They came out and swept a doubleheader. But we’ve got to get ready to play tomorrow.”
Can these matchups be tough against a team (Nats) that can’t afford to lose hardly any more?
“Not really. We’re still trying to do something, too. We really haven’t gotten to where we want to go yet. We really don’t want to put ourselves in a hole. We’re lucky we built ourselves a large enough lead that we can have a little bit of a skid, but we’ve got to bring it every day, one game at a time, and get this thing over with so we can give some guys a rest. I think we ought to come out tomorrow and play a good game.”
On playing games in the throes of a playoff race
“A lot of guys in here really haven’t experienced that yet. You can see it on their face, trying to make things happen. It’s just one of those things, you’ve got to let it happen, go out there and play the game hard and let the game come to you. Like I said, we were fortunate where we had a big lead and can have a skid like this. But we’ve got a good ballclub and I expect us to turn around tomorrow and come here and hopefully play a good game.”
Nationals center fielder DENARD SPAN
Nice being able to prevent the Braves from clinching during this series?
“Most definitely. We definitely didn’t want to see that. We didn’t want
to see them jumping around on our field. They can do that somewhere else, not here in Washington this year.”
Nationals manager DAVEY JOHNSON
“I think it sends a good message over to Atlanta that we’re not going anywhere. We struggled a little bit early, but we’re certainly a capable ballclub and we’ve got the talent to compete with anybody.
Quotes after 6-5 loss in Game 1
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On the loss, dramatic turn of events
“That quickly… Leadoff walks. It (also) happened to Mikey in the first inning. You don’t get a chance to defend those, and then they put the ball in play a couple of times and we didn’t get an out. We didn’t get an out when I thought we should have got an out here or there, might have been a little different story. But he’ll be all right. Kimbrel will rattle off 40-some in a row, and once in a while you’re going to have one of these games. Get him back out there.”
Did you think Elliot Johnson had a chance to field that ball without trying to flip it with glove to second?
“He was going pretty hard to his right. I think he might have … it would have been a little tougher player. Since LaRoche was running, I think he may have had a little more time than he thought he did. He may have had a little more time to set his feet and throw with his right hand. I thought with Roachy running we might have had a little better chance with that play. But he (Johnson) was going pretty hard to his right.”
On Kimbrel and Simmons being two of most reliable in baseball at their positions
“It’s a baseball game. You always want the ball hit to Simmons, and you always want the ball in Kimbrel’s hand in the ninth inning. But it’s a cruel game sometimes. People across the way don’t want to make the last out either. But we had the right people in the right spots.”
On Minor bearing down after rough start
“He did. He settled down a little bit. They got three runs in the first inning, and then we just kind of hung around, had a couple of spots, Gattis had a great at-bat that gave us a chance to take the lead. To get a ball out to center here, you’ve really go to put a charge in it.
“Elliot Johnson got to third base (in the ninth) and we snuck a run in when Desmond made an error…. (But) it was just one of those games.”
Glad to get back out there instead of having to wait after that loss?
“Instead of waiting 24 hours? Yeah, I think anytime you get back in the saddle, it’s always good.”
**CRAIG KIMBREL
On his performance
“I just couldn’t throw strikes. I couldn’t get my curveball over. That was the biggest thing: If I can’t get that over for a strike, it kind of opens up the door.”
“They didn’t hit a ball out of the infield and scored three runs. It’s tough. Obviously that was a big game for us. We wanted to win it. I wasn’t able to do my job. Hopefully I can come back the second game and do it.”
“At any position if you don’t get your job done, you want to go back out there as fast as you can. Hopefully we score some runs and are winning in the ninth inning this next game, and I can come in and shut it down.”
Other times this year you’ve not had a feel for the strike zone?
“There are times. There’s times where you go out there and hit every spot and give up runs, and times when you go out there and have no idea where it’s going, and not give up any runs. That’s just part of it.”
Make it harder to swallow after way team fought back from deficit?
“Any time I go out there and don’t do my job it’s tough to swallow. My job is to go out there and solidify what everybody’s done the entire game. Everybody worked their butts off all game long, and we battled hard and came back and took the lead, and I just wasn’t able to go out there and close it out.”
**MIKE MINOR
Settled in after first inning
“I started throwing more strikes.”
Didn’t feel like it was hopeless after first?
“No, I felt good. But I also knew I’d given up three runs, and I needed to be pretty much flawless (after that) to keep us in the game.”
On Kimbrel, shocked to see him give up runs like that?
“I feel like with Craig, they can get bases loaded with no outs and you still feel like he’s going to get out of it. He’s going to strike out the side. That’s just the kind of pitcher he is, a power pitcher. You hardly ever see these kind of days.”
Recovering for five scoreless innings good for confidence this late in season after that first inning?
“Yeah. I didn’t lose anything. Just a bad first inning again. I’ve got to limit those, the runs early on in games. For whatever reason it’s happened a couple of times this year. Just try to fix that.”
**EVAN GATTIS
After your big homer, was that a big swing of emotions?
“Yeah, a little bit. It’s a tough loss. Ready to get back after them again tonight and see what happens.”
Surprised as we are when Simmons makes an error like that?
“Yeah, of all the guys. You saw Desmond booted one, too, to kind of give us the lead.”
“It’s one of those things. That’s baseball. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Could happen to anybody. Tough loss. Ready to get at them tonight.”
**ANDRELTON SIMMONS
On his game-ending error
“Just missed it. No excuses. Just missed the ball.”
Did it hit your glove at all?
“I don’t know.”
Did it go between your legs?
“I couldn’t tell you. After I knew I didn’t catch it, it’s a blur.”
“I just didn’t do my job, that’s all I can tell you. I should have caught the ball, and I didn’t.”
Better to be able to go back out and few hours later instead of stewing a full day on loss like this?
“We’ll have to see. I don’t even know what the lineup is yet. The guys are always ready to go, so hopefully we play a better game this next game and come out with a win.”
Were you in a rush at all there on that grounder?
“I just missed the ball.”
