Quotes compiled by Matthew Bain and Michael Cunningham
FREDI GONZALEZ
On Alex Wood’s performance
“He battled. If there’s one word, he battled, he competed. I think there was base runners on in every inning. He had a lot of stuff going. He got on base with the triple. He had a lot of base runners like I said. He bent a little bit, but he didn’t give in, and he kept right in there. And we were able to give him a little cushion and we ended up winning the game.”
On how nice it is to get big innings like they did tonight
“Early on we had some really, really good at-bats against (Kevin) Correia. That was good to give (us) the lead and we converted. We had to use some pitchers there. I thought (David) Aardsma did a good job there giving us 1 2/3 innings. And then (Dana) Eveland coming in and getting (Ryan) Howard. So we were able to give (Jason) Grilli another day and (Luis) Avilan who we’re kind of worrying about some of his appearances – the numbers of it. And (Jim Johnson).”
On two straight three-hit games from Cameron Maybin
“You know what he’s swinging he bat well and he’s been real consistent. So good for us, good for him. He stole a base. When he’s got his game going he can make an impact. Defensively, offensively, on the base paths, and we’ve seen that the last couple of nights.”
On the team’s four-game winning streak
“Well, you know what let’s keep going. We had a rough road trip. We were 1-5 on our road trip. It’s nice to come home and we got two series wins at home. Washington and then this one, but let’s get greedy. We’ve got (Shelby) Miller going for us tomorrow against (Cole) Hamels. Let’s go out there and try to get a sweep.”
On if he saw this type of season from Maybin coming
“I can’t sit here and tell you I’ve seen something mechanically he’s done, but I think the confidence is there. I think he’s bought into the approach that (hitting coach Kevin) Seitzer and (assistant hitting coach Jose Castro) have given him. And in our game confidence plays a major role more than anything else. “
ALEX WOOD
On having to battle to through his outing tonight
“Yeah I guess that’s probably the only thing you could call it is a battle, for sure.”
On how he felt about his pitches
“All three were pretty ugly. Probably one of my worst of what I’ve had in terms of command of all of my pitches from start to finish.”
On why he might have been better in the beginning of the game
“Maybe luck? I mean, I didn’t think it was very good from start to finish. Maybe a little bit better in the first two innings, but as a whole it just wasn’t very pretty. But if that’s the worst one that I’ll have with the worst stuff, I’ll take that in a win.”
On the play of Cameron Maybin
“He’s a beast, man. I tell him all the time. He comes to play every single day and the only thing you see out of him is hustle and heart from start to finish and it’s really, really fun to watch.”
CAMERON MAYBIN
On giving Alex Wood early run support
“He’s been doing a great job the last few starts out keeping us in the ballgame. He did an awesome job tonight and we did a good job of giving him some run support early which is always huge for any starting pitcher. Great job for him to get us deep into the game and offense did an awesome job.”
On if playing close to home has him rejuvenated this season
“It’s got a lot to do with it. I had my son with me all day today. We got to get out on the field and hit early. Things like that are important, special. To be able to be close to home—my mom, my father, family and friends—it’s been a new-found energy as well as being healthy has been a big part of it. I’m having a blast playing here. We will see what happens but I am really enjoying my time here.”
On the team’s standing at the halfway point of the season
“We believe we are still in it. We’ve got two, three months left. We feel like we haven’t played our best baseball and we are still right there. If we continue to take care of division games, we like our chances.”
