SAN DIEGO -- Braves quotes after Tuesday night's 14-1 rout of the Padres at Petco Park, where Southern California native Freddie Freeman went 4-for-4 with two doubles, a homer and a walk, Dansby Swanson and Nick Markakis had multi-run homers, and Sean Newcomb pitched six scoreless innings of three-hit ball to continue his torrid stretch.
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
Did you want to show your son (20-month-old Charlie) how to hit after you showed him around the field before batting practice?
“Yeah, it’s always good to have my family here. I had a lot of fun before the game and it carried over into the game.”
What does it say about Newcomb that he can go out and pitch like that and it’s just another outing for him, about how far he’s come in a year?
“Every time he goes on the mound you feel pretty confident we’re going to get the win that day. He’s been lights-out for a long time and hopefully that continues.”
Only been 31 starts for Newcomb in the big leagues, does it feel like he’s been around longer than that?
“Yeah, he’s very quite, he just goes out there and does his work. He seems to just go out there and throw shutout innings ever single time. What he did tonight was pretty special. Sometimes you can lose your focus when you get 8- or 9-run leads, but he just kept pounding strikes.”
Do you like what you’re seeing lately from Dansby Swanson, who has three homers in his past five games and had three hits and three RBIs tonight?
“Yeah, I mean no one’s worried about Dansby. When you come off the DL, no matter how long you stay on the DL, your timing’s not going to be there. I pretty much told him, your timing’s not going to be there for a little bit. And he kept grinding, kept going, and now we’re seeing him get his timing back.”
Did you not want to stay in and go for the triple to complete a hitting cycle?
“He asked me to come out of the game last night and I said no. He asked me today and I said ok. But I’m kind of glad, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a hit off a position player, so my last at-bat would have been in that situation.” (Padres infielder Cory Spangenberg pitched the ninth inning.)
What are you doing lately at the plate?
“See pitches come over the plate and I swing. These guys (Atlanta reporters) know, I’m doing nothing different. Try and get a good pitch to hit and swing, and they’ve been falling (for hits) lately.”
**DANSBY SWANSON
On the team’s scoring outburst a day after losing 11-4 in Monday’s series opener
“Honestly it was just a great response to (Monday) night. Last night they did it to us and it was just nice to be able to come out and string a lot of good at-bats together, and I think you could really see the momentum shift in our direction early in the game. Huge response on our end.”
On Sean Newcomb’s season
“He’s great. Pitch executive, he’s really trusting in the game plan. He’s got a great catcher back there that game-planning for him and helping put him in position to succeed. It works hand-in-hand, too. When we’re able to come out there and score and he’s able to get a shut-down inning and we’re able to keep putting runs out there, he’s able to settle in and really make his pitches. And he did that tonight.”
Freddie Freeman said he told you that you wouldn’t have your timing for awhile coming off DL, do you understand now what he meant?
“It can be frustrating at times just coming back (from the DL), you think you’re fully just on ‘go’ from where you left off. It does take a little bit. Just sometimes the little thigns get lost along the way when you’re not allowed to hit for a little bit. I’ve worked real hard with Seitz and Nach (hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and assistant Jose Castro) to get back where I need to be.”
On his 11-pitch at-bat that ended with a single
“I don’t know how many pitches it was but I was getting a little tired, to be honest…. I was luckily able to fight off (some pitches) and then get one I could handle and put a good swing on it. Yeah, long at-bat.”
**SEAN NEWCOMB
On his performance
“It was good to get some zeroes going early, then just keep pounding the zone. I wasn’t really where I wanted to be command-wise today, but I still did a good job of mixing it up and getting some off-speed in there for strikes when I needed to and just kind of keeping them off-balance.”
On working around a couple of walks
“It’s no different than somebody hitting a single. Just try to get the next guy, make some good pitches and hope for the double play. Just kind of approach it like it’s a single.”
On the resiliency of the team, bouncing back from 11-4 loss Monday to blow them out 14-1 tonight, not let opening loss carry over
“It was good. For me, I almost expected that they (Braves hitters) were going to have a good night at the plate. There’s not many times where they have two down nights in a row. It was definitely a big boost going out there with a good lead after a few innings.”
**BRIAN SNITKER
On Dansby, three homers in past five games
“He’s starting to hit the breaking balls. He’s had trouble with it, but it’s like, if you’re going to want to sober them up (pitchers), you’re going to need to hit ‘em, and he has. He had a big homer on the homestand and he’s just swinging the bat really good, he’s making good decisions and he’s not fouling off pitches. That was a really good at-bat, I don’t know how many pitches it was on that RBI single (it was 11 pitches). It was a really tough, good at-bat right there.”
On resiliency of team to not let 11-4 loss in series opener Monday carry over
“It just kind of goes back to that whole mindset of this team and who they are. I just keep preaching live for today. We can’t do anything about yesterday and surely can’t do anything about tomorrow, so we just stay in the present time and do the best we can and prepare and get ready to win today, and they do a good job of putting a tough night behind them.”
Newcomb coming out of spring training was confident, but could you have imagined this kind of run from him?
“No, you don’t imagine anything like that. You hope, you see signs. He started off at spring training and was really good, strong. Started the season and he’s just kind of been building on each start. Just a lot of confidence. His stuff tonight was really good, really crisp. I thought, total package. And it’s really good to see. He’s staying focused and going pitch to pitch.”
On Freeman reaching base all five times on four hits including two doubles and a homer, and a walk
“The one ball, the two-out single, was as hard a hit ball as I’ve seen all year. The right fielder had the ball before – I mean, Ozzie runs good and he wasn’t even close to third base. But he swung the bat good tonight.”
On Freeman using the whole field, beating shifts
“Freddie uses the whole field. They shift him a lot, but he beats the shift a lot, too. He gets a lot of hits to left field, a lot of homers to left field. He’s kind of a gap-to-gap guy. And I’ve seen him beat the shift with line drives, even to right field. I guess they shift him to try to get him to go the other way, so he doesn’t hit it into the seats in right field, but that (pulling the ball) is not really where his strength is.”
On Luke Jackson pitching final three innings for a save after being brought from Triple-A on Tuesday
“It was good to stay out of the bullpen again, now we’ve got everybody back ready to go tomorrow.”
