Braves quotes after Tuesday’s loss to the Dodgers

On if it’s difficult to overlook the loss and see how well Mike Minor pitched

“No, it isn’t because we were all worried about Mike. We skipped him (in the rotation). We’ve got to give a lot of credit to Mike and Roger (McDowell) with the way his outing was today. He was really, really good. A couple of balls were hit right out of the reach of infielders that cost him some runs. But he was really, really good and I hope that continues. I can’t wait until his next start. He pounded the strike zone with his fastball and threw a couple nice breaking pitches off that. That was a really good outing, a solid outing.”

Another game where pitcher pitched well enough to win if offense scores

“I thought we had a couple good at-bats. B.J. had a nice at-bat against (Dan) Haren, and obviously the home run. We need to keep the line moving. We’ll get it going. A couple times during the course of the game there were placed balls between the infielder and the outfielder, out of reach of infielders. That seems to be a theme. But I thought Mike was good.”

Do you think your 12 strikeouts was the biggest roadblock to keeping the line moving tonight?

“Yeah. There were a couple times we had a couple of people on base and we got strikeouts. That’s what we need to get better at.”

Have you seen the right approach consistently for any time?

“At times, sure. I know these guys work at it. We are not teaching them to strike out, I can tell you that much. But it’s hard to keep the line moving when you get a single, a hit, or walk and then you get a strikeout in between there. It’s hard to score runs.”

On couple of bloop hits to right field being costly lately

“They are out of reach of Tommy (La Stella). What really comes to mind is (Matt Kemp) hit one to score the second run, Jason (Heyward) couldn’t get to it. (Darwin) Barney had another one. That’s where we are right now.”

On if Heyward was playing Kemp deep

“You’ve got to respect him. It’s not like it’s the pitcher up. Here’s a guy who can drive the ball to right field, and you’ve got two outs and you’ve got to respect him. I don’t think Jason could get to it.”

**MIKE MINOR

On whether he was more aggressive around the strike zone as planned

“I think so. I changed some things mechanically and with some grips. I felt like my stuff was breaking better. I was more on the corner of the plate and not the middle.”

On what he was happiest with tonight

“Probably my off-speed and being able to throw it with two-plane break rather than (just) side-to-side movement. I threw some good ones and I threw some good curveballs, even though some of them got hit. But it was encouraging. And also two-seamers, four-seamers mixing it in and throwing to both sides of the plate.”\\

On hitting Justin Turner with an 0-1 pitch in the second inning

“That was bad. It just got away from me. I tried to go in and I don’t even know what happened. I kind of just threw the pitch and it was up and in…. They hit some balls hard and then there were some that blooped in. I felt like the ones that blooped in were the ones they scored on.”

The hit by pitcher Dan Haren, bad pitch or one of those that felt like bad luck?

“I could have maybe made a better pitch but it was the pitcher so I didn’t want to bounce a breaking ball. He stepped in the bucket and swung it, hit it the other way on the barrel. It was kind of one of those things where I felt like if I made maybe a better pitch … even so I don’t want to throw another ball to him there.”

On confidence after this performance, considering your own expectations

“It’s very high tonight. The San Diego start I still didn’t feel as good because I think I was just getting by. I feel like I’ve turned the corner a little bit. It’s the way I felt and the pitches were breaking and mechanically I was getting on the mound and throwing strikes.”

**JASON HEYWARD

On Dodgers finding a lot of holes with bloops and groundball hits

“That’s the nature of the game sometimes, and when you have to fight to get that extra out, it works in their favor more times than not. They didn’t get big hits tonight; Mike threw well for us. But it was one of those games where some balls fell in and they were able to get the extra run late (in the ninth), that was huge.”

Good to see Minor bounce back with a solid start after time off?

“Yeah, he’s been battling. We’ve been right there fighting for him, fighting with him. And he was able to come out tonight and give us a good start. I know he would rather have it go another way and get a W for us and have left the game with a lead, but he threw well enough to get a W for us tonight. They were just able to get that one extra hit with two outs. That’s huge.”

On Haren getting big pitches and strikeouts when he needed them

“He did, man. The guy’s tough. I haven’t faced him a whole lot, eight ABs including tonight. He makes the ball move. He doesn’t throw a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate. He’s effective, whether he throws a lot of pitches or few pitches. He’s not going to give in to you. That makes it tough.

“We hit some balls hard, we had some base hits. It’s tough when the guy’s going out there and not giving in, he doesn’t really care if he throws you a strike.”

On whether the offensive struggles become frustrating

“I’ll be honest, everybody wants to get the hit, everyone wants to sort of pass the torch and take your walk or what have you, move somebody over. Sometimes those situations don’t come about, so you feel like you have to go up there and get a hit, you have to press. And that’s unfortunate. Sometimes you just like to manufacture runs, but it doesn’t always happen that way, so it takes the big hit.

“To be honest, going into the season I wasn’t too worried about our offense. I know you can look at numbers and say wherever they rank in the league or whatever, but to me it takes keeping game close like late in the game right there. Errors will happen, but it just makes it that much tougher to go get two runs against a closer, versus getting one. So I feel like you’ve got to play whole games. Offense is a big part of it; that’s going to show up in the boxscore. But at the same time, little things are going to win championships, and little things need to happen to win games like that.”

Puts a lot of pressure on the pitcher, not scoring many runs

“It’s a lot of pressure, on both sides, pitching and offense. Not to concede anything, not to say we’re not going out there and competing, but we’re facing good pitching. We’re facing good teams right now, and again, when you play good teams you’re going to have to win one-run ballgames. It’s not going to be a blowout. It’s just not going to happen. And I feel like that’s where we need to complete ourselves and be complete as a team. The name of the game when you’re playing playoff teams, you’re playing guys with aces in the 2 and 3 slots, you’re going to have to win a one-run ballgame.”

**B.J. UPTON

You seeing breaking stuff well lately, homered on split tonight and curveball against Strasburg

“I don’t know. I’m seeing the ball well right now. Still working, still trying to put good ABs together. I’ve had stretches where I haven’t felt the best, but I can’t really say I’ve really felt that bad all year. The numbers might not say that, but at the same time I haven’t really gotten any balls to fall (for hits). But I don’t know, just got to go out there and keep grinding, keep playing.”

You’ve been part of some Rays teams that made strong playoff runs late, do you see any signs to make you think this team and this offense can do that?

“Oh yeah, definitely. We’re always a couple of hits away from winning the ballgame. That’s pretty good, it just seems like time after time the (opposing pitcher) makes some good pitches and gets out of it. But that’s just the way it’s rolling. It can’t happen that way all year. There’s a lot of baseball left to be played. I know a lot of people are looking at the Nationals in front of us, but we still play those guys a lot, and there’s a lot of baseball to be played. So there’s no need to panic. Yeah, it’s five games, but at the same time we went on that stretch run and they didn’t and things kind of flipped. That’s the game of baseball sometimes.”