Braves quotes after their 2-1 victory against the Phillies on Saturday at Turner Field.
FREDI GONZALEZ
On if Ryan Weber is the real deal
“We’ll slow play it but he’s pitched well. He moves the ball, he follows the glove, he fields his position. He does a lot of good stuff. I say let’s slow play it because he’s a young kid, you don’t want to all of a sudden make him Greg Maddux. But you know what? He competes. He changes speeds. He does a lot of good things out there. Today defensively, Petey (Jace Peterson) made a nice play and (Andrelton) Simmons saved the game. If not, we’d still be playing. Good, up-tempo game. I know we left a lot of runners on base, had first and third, hit the ball hard didn’t get anything out of it.”
On if Weber matches his minor league reports
“A little but the reports are different because Weber is not facing major-league hitters down there. You take those reports and read through some of the comments and you still want to lay your eyes on him and see how the swings are different than they are in the minor leagues.”
On if it helps Weber to have faced Phillies before
“I don’t know. Some people will tell you it’s not a good thing because they’ve got some history, they’ve got some video, they have seen him live. Today he could have pitched against anybody because he had good movement on his fastball, command of his breaking pitches and he threw the ball over the plate.”
FREDDIE FREEMAN
On Weber’s outing
“He pitched awesome. He’s been doing that since he came up. He pounds the zone, he keeps the ball down and he keeps the defense in it.”
On winning the series
“We’ve got the first two games out of the way and hopefully we can go out there and get the sweep tomorrow. It’s been a long time since we’ve done that. A lot of good things happened tonight and the last two games.”
On Arodys Vizcaino
“He came in and shut it down. Edwin (Jackson) did a phenomenal job. That’s two days in a row and hopefully we can keep that streak going and have a good last two weeks of the season.”
On what pitch he was looking for on his double against Jerome Williams
“Something out over. I knew he wasn’t going to try to walk bases loaded. I was looking backdoor cutter and he threw a two-seamer out where I was looking. I was just able to get a good part of the bat on it and hit it over the guy’s head.”
On if he was glad to see Phillies bullpen after starter Jerad Eickhoff was effective
“You see the starter three times and you haven’t faced him (before) I think you are going to have some success the fourth time. He’s a young guy. That’s smart on their move to get him out when he’s had a good start.”
RYAN WEBER
On his outing
“I was just pounding the zone early and often. Thank God my curveball finally came around. My changeup was really working tonight.”
On facing the Phillies for the second time
“I still pitched to my strengths. I knew I had to be a little more fine because they’d already seen me and just mix my pitches more than I did last time.”
On if he saw more action on his off-speed pitches
“My changeup definitely improved. My curveballs early in the count were way better.”
On changeup to Darin Ruf
“I do it often but it’s not my go-to strikeout pitch for a righty but in that case, it worked.”
ANDRELTON SIMMONS
On his diving catch in the ninth
“Just trying to help the team. We played a good game. Pitchers did great. I got an opportunity to help and I’m glad I did.”
On Weber
“I played him coming up and he throws a lot of strikes. Gets a lot of contact, mostly on the ground. He keeps everybody in the game. You’ve got to love the way he pitches. He just attacks the zone and lets his pitches do the work.”
On Weber’s style
“He comes right at you. Every once in a while somebody will have a bad day, you won’t feel it. But on a normal day he’s like (Bartolo) Colon a little bit, he comes right at you. He’s got movement, works with the off-speed a little bit. Most of the time it’s easy ground balls.”
On Arodys Vizcaino
“Awesome , man. He’s another guy I came up with. Good off-speed, he can command it. Fastball he can get it up there. Comes in, throws strikes. It’s something to be really positive about moving forward.”
