Braves quotes after Tuesday’s win vs. Royals

FREDI GONZALEZ

On the victory being bittersweet, given Avilan’s injury:

“We’ll see. Obviously the way he fell down there it didn’t look good. We think it’s a hamstring but we’ll find out here more in the next 20 minutes or 30 minutes. He’s in there with the doc and see what he says….We come back and have a big eighth inning there with three home runs and then Chris Johnson did a nice job after Schafer steals a bag to get us another run and then something like that happens. We’ll get through it.”

On Heyward, Upton and Uggla’s work against a really good reliever:

“Both of those guys that came out of the bullpen have got some real good arms. Heyward was getting close and Danny, the whole road trip their approach and passes at the ball you could tell it was just a matter of time. Hopefully a game like tonight carries them over for a couple months.”

On if amazed at power of team:

“I’ve been around them now two months. You know the power is there. That doesn’t surprise you. You hit three in one inning and Francisco, he’s been around a couple years now so you know the power he has. It’s nice to have that type of arsenal in your club because it’s a game-changer. One swing of the bat and you can put some runs on the board, so that’s always nice. I thought Med was terrific. Gave up one run and then we kind of kicked the ball around him a little bit. He gave us a hell of a chance to win the ball game today and we did.”

On if any way to hold out hope it’s just a cramp or has reality set in it’s worse:

“The way he fell down, he couldn’t put his foot on the ground, I’m thinking worst-case scenario. But we’ll see. I’ll take a cramp right now.”

(Braves announced after the game Avilan had a strained hamstring and cramping and would be re-evaluated on Wednesday.)

JASON HEYWARD

On staying positive lately, despite lack of results:

"Absolutely. Just reminds me of a similar start to a season I've had before. Just got to keep putting up good at-bats, keep hitting the ball hard and they'll fall eventually."

On the eighth inning:

“We did a good job of fighting back to make it 2-2. Juan, awesome job by him giving us two runs on home runs and Med keeping them right there. One homer after another for us in the eighth inning and it led to an easier night.”

On feeding off each other:

“Definitely. We’ve got a good team. We all feel like it’s just a matter of time before we get something done big. We know we’re going up there with team mindset at-bats. Just a huge win for everybody today.”

On turning around the fastballs:

“If you can’t hit a fastball in major league baseball, you don’t need to be playing major league baseball.”

On fun to see who’s ball lands where right now:

“Nah, I don’t think so. It’s awesome seeing where they land. I’m not going to front about that. Again we’re going up there trying to keep it simple. Get good pitches to hit. Even at-bats where we don’t get hits, we’re trying to see enough pitches and go up there and make the pitcher work to get us out. Try to put the ball in play. We feel like if we keep plugging away the pitcher will make a mistake.”

DAN UGGLA

On what it’s like to be a part of an inning like that:

“The game is tied, huge homer from J-Hey. He’s been crushing the ball the last four games or whatever, including tonight, and that just shows you how well he’s been swinging the bat and how locked in he is right now, driving the ball to straight left field like that. That was awesome. Huge homer by him to put us up and then J-Up just continued up. Gatty just missed his and I was lucky enough to get a fastball and put a good swing on it as well. Fun.”

On what you knew about Herrera:

“He definitely has got a great arm. He’s got great stuff. We didn’t really know a whole lot about him, just knew that he had a really great arm. We didn’t know a lot about any of these guys over here. But that’s the fun about playing interleague. You get to see guys and face guys you normally don’t get to see.”

On if this roll takes on a special quality:

“Definitely. These runs don’t come too often. You’ve got to ride the wave as long as you can ride it. It’s definitely a lot of fun. We’re playing good baseball. We’re coming from behind. We’re battling. We’re still in the process of figuring it out as a collective team. But we’re off to a great start. There’s a great vibe in the clubhouse and we’re going to keep going. We’re going to keep riding it. And keep picking each other up.”

On Avilan:

“You never like to see anybody go down like that. Hopefully it looked a lot worse than it actually is. He’s a huge part of our bullpen, a huge part of our team. And we need him back as fast as possible. You hope it’s just a cramp but from the looks of it, it doesn’t look like that but you still hope.”

JUSTIN UPTON

On the lift from Heyward’s home run:

“It was just good to see. He’s been barreling balls up for the past week and not had anything to show for it. Coming up big for us late like that, it’s good to see out of him.”

On if amazing yourselves right now with these kind of barrages:

“It’s fun when you can do that but our goal is to go out and play good baseball every night, pitch well, play good defense and put up good at-bats and we’ve been doing that so far.”

On good just to see something different after Guthrie:

“Guthrie pitched well. He mixed his pitches, hit his spots, and we didn’t quite solve him. Juan was really the only one that got to him. When he came out of the game, obviously he was throwing the ball well and we had to move onto the next guy. We got some good pitches to hit and we handled them.”

On his fast start:

“I’m getting my work in and trying to put together good at-bats every game and not give away any at-bats. Early on I’ve been able to go up with a plan and stick to it.”

On if trying not to overthink anything, just ride it out:

“You never want to overthink throughout the season. That’s the worst thing you can do to yourself is think too much. I think the more simple you can keep it the better off you’ll be….You try to duplicate swings instead of going off of feel and that can hurt you sometimes. When you’re getting your work in, just try to make sure you feel good and take it to the field.”

On if guys are feeding off each other:

“Oh for sure. Any time of energy is contagious in the dugout so if you get something rolling, that energy just kind of translates.”

KRIS MEDLEN

On his outing:

“I was letting the fastball go a little bit more rather than just worrying about locating and guiding it in there. Just worried about my mechanics before the pitch and just said I’m going to try to throw it to this spot, and I’m going to try to throw the crap out of it. For me that’s 91. Instead of just trying to guide in 89. I was really trying to let it eat a little bit more and just let it take care of itself and I felt like I was locating some pitches better that way.”

On their aggressiveness early in the game and count: