**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Alex Wood’s outing and the loss
“I thought he pitched good. He gave us seven innings, gave us a chance to win. We got him behind the eight-ball, a couple of balls we could have turned a couple more double plays. But I thought he pitched good. He’s going to get the ‘L’ and Strasburg’s going to get the ‘W’, but I almost, back of my mind, thought he pitched better than Strasburg. Obviously got deeper in the game with his pitch count, and Stephen didn’t. But that’s baseball. Gave up three runs and lose. But I thought he pitched good.”
“He didn’t get a chance to get a ‘W’ but he gave us seven innings, saved the bullpen – lot of good things. And we got a home run in the eighth inning to get us within two runs, the bullpen did a nice job keeping it there. And that checked swing (by Maybin with bases loaded), maybe three or four feet from being fair and here we go. We’d still be playing. But we battled. We battled good, like we always do. We just didn’t get anything going early in the game.”
On one or the other team reeling off a lot of wins in a row in this series the past few years, right now the Nationals doing it
“They’re a good club. They’ve got a lot of good players on that club. Got veterans, got some young players. Taylor had a nice game for them; lot of nice young players. And they’ve got a good pitching staff — one through 12 or 13, depending what they’re carrying out there, they’re pretty darn good.”
On Maybin misplay in center and not turning double play in another inning, how things might have been different
“It could have been. It could have been a lot worse, too. You’ve got to give Woody a lot of credit for keeping that inning to just a single run, they didn’t put up a crooked number. I saw later in the game the ball with Maybin – it looked like it just took a little bad hop or skidding on him and came up his glove. And then the double-play ball – they’re tough to turn. Petey (Jace Peterson) couldn’t get it out of his glove in time to get the runner at first base. But again, those innings they scored, but Woody kept it at one run, which was a nice job on his part.”
**ALEX WOOD
Not happy with result, but you’ve got be happy to get through seven tonight, three runs?
“Yeah. I mean, if you can be happy with losing in any way, shape or form. I was happy to go seven. But a couple of pitches I wish I had back, for sure, those innings where they scored some runs.”
On how a couple of innings might have evolved differently if defense makes plays
“That’s baseball. I was fortunate enough that I was able to make some pitches when I needed to, to avoid having a much worse situation that could have happened, from that standpoint. From that aspect I was happy, but there were definitely a few that I wish I had back. The one to Span, the groundball RBI – got to make a better pitch than that in that situation. Just hung it a little bit.
“You know, you come in here with first place in the division on the line, we battled from start to finish. Strasburg was probably the best he’s been since I’ve been here, 2 1/3, three years, he’s probably been against us ever. He looked terrific tonight. You’ve just got to tip your cap. We did a good job battling and getting him out of there after five. We do what we do, man. We just keep battling, keep grinding every day. We’ve got a great ground of guys. Just got to continue to plug away.”
On Rendon going 4-for-4 against him, continuing career success against Wood
“I told A.J. I was just going to throw him fastballs away the whole last at-bat, just to see if he could get out or not. It just seems like he’s got a real good approach against me. He takes his hits. Fortunately he wasn’t able to do more damage past the four singles.”
**CHRIS JOHNSON
Braves have beat him up so many times, it’s easy to forget Strasburg’s had plenty of success against other teams
“Yeah, he’s pretty good. He had his good stuff tonight. Throwing the ball real hard, his curveball was working pretty good, he was working both sides of the plate. We battled to try to get his pitch count up so we could try to do something against their bullpen, but their bullpen came in and did pretty well. It’s just one game. Bounce back tomorrow.”
On Alex Wood getting through seven innings with three runs despite allowing 10 hits
“Yeah, I think it’s one of those games if you ask him, he probably would say he didn’t have his best stuff. But he battled. That’s what good pitchers do. He battled for seven innings, kept us in the ballgame, and gave us a chance there at the end. Woody did a great job.”
