Braves quotes after Tuesday’s 7-5 loss at Arizona

“I think we lost five game on this road trip, and they all happen to be right there in those innings, where we can’t get the ball to (setup man Jim) Johnson or to (closer Jason) Grilli. When we do that we’ve got a chance to win a ballgame. But again, Shelby struggled for the first time all year. He was battling his mechanics a little bit, his command was not like we’ve seen it before. But nevertheless, we had a chance to win the ballgame.

“We had four walks out of the bullpen, one to lead off an inning, one with two outs and nobody on. Those hurt. You can’t be walking people in those middle innings out of the bullpen.”

On Shelby Miller’s struggles tonight

“He wasn’t right from the very beginning. He was battling himself the whole time. I don’t know exactly what the problem was, but he just battled the whole time. And still gave us a pretty good chance to win the ballgame. That one inning I had him right at 30-some pitches, and that took a lot out of him.”

Losing a game after getting all those two-out hits, rallying from three-run deficit to take two-run lead, does that make it tougher to lose when middle relievers again blow it, when maybe if you had another pitcher or two in some of these games you might have five or six more wins?

“Yeah, it’s kind of demoralizing a little bit sometimes when you’re team’s battling and battling, they’re fighting and scratching and clawing for runs. You see it in the eyes of the position players sometimes. They’re battling and … And you know what, it’s nobody’s fault, really. But you don’t want too many more of these. We’re down 4-1, we scratch and we get up two runs, and the next thing you know they hit a two-run homer and they win a ballgame.”

On giving up the homer after two-out walk issued by middle reliever

“And to open up the (sixith) with (a walk) with nobody out. We’ve got to get it fixed. Because we’re in every ballgame, and here it is the first week of June and we’re right in the thick of things.”

**BRANDON CUNNIFF

On the walk that he issued to Inciarte with two out, just before the 2-run homer

“Killed me. Had him 1-2, couldn’t finish him. Killed me.”

On the homer by Pollock

“Just made a bad pitch and he crushed it.”

Still thinking about the walk when Pollock came up?

“No. I don’t know, I was just trying to throw a strike, I guess. Try to hit the outside corner. He just went with it.”

What was the pitch, a fastball?

“Yeah, a fastball away.”

**A.J. PIERZYNSKI

On Miller’s struggles tonight

“Just a little bit off tonight. These starts happen. It’s been so good all year. It wasn’t horrible, we still at one point had a lead. So it wasn’t like we were just completely out of the game. Just a little bit off. We walked, what, 10 guys in the game? You won’t win a lot of big league games walking 10 guys. It’s just one of those nights where things didn’t work out. But again, we had a chance in the ninth inning. We had the lead late in the game, it just didn’t work out.”

On the two-out rally in the sixth

“It was great. Like I said, we had a chance. We had a two-run leading going into the sixth or seventh inning. We’ll take that, especially the way the game started, the way Shelby kind of struggled a little bit. But he’ll be fine. Just one of those nights where he just had a hard time. But he’s been so good, you can’t get down on him.”

On Cunniff – young pitchers going to have nights like this?

“Yeah, just a two-out walk, and then a home run. One-run lead, it’s just tough. Again, we walked 10 guys. It’s tough. Just wasn’t meant to be.”

**SHELBY MILLER

Did you feel like you were kind of fighting it from the beginning tonight?

“Yeah, just a little bit. Kind of didn’t-really-get-in-a-groove type of thing.”

On being so good this year, people come to expect close to perfection from him

“You’re still human. I mean, you look at Felix Hernandez’s start yesterday, and other guys’ starts who are doing well. I mean, it’s going to happen. That kind of stuff’s going to happen. Besides the point of my pitching, we should have won the game. Our offense did a hell of job coming back and scoring runs and battle their butts off all night, and the defense made great plays. At the end of the day we should have won the game. But it didn’t happen. Tough loss tonight.”

On walking pitcher Collmenter

“That’s terrible. That’s horrible. Won’t talk about that.”

Was the issue tonight mechanics, or a combination of things?

“Yeah, just a little bit of everything. Just couldn’t get balls over the plate, mechanics were maybe working a little bit quicker than I should have been. But that’s all excuses. This game, it’s not made for excuses. There’s no reason to go out there and and walk six batters, there’s no reason to go out there and walk the pitcher. Just a tough day.”