—Quotes compiled by Michael Cunningham and Matthew Bain
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Alex Wood
I thought he battled. He gave us a great opportunity to win the ball game. With bases loaded there with the pitcher at the plate, I think (Jace) Peterson had a little mental lapse. He thought the pitcher was running but he forgot Kelly is a guy who grew up in the National League. He knows how to handle the bat, he knows how to run the bases. I think he lulled him to sleep a little bit. I’m sure that won’t happen again with Petey. We battled offensively. We scratched and clawed for every single run. We’ve got a kid (Daniel)Castrocoming up in that situation and he got his first hit in his first at-bat and experienced his first W. It’s going to be a good night for him.
On Ciriaco’s three hits
Good for him. Simba (Andreltin Simmons) is going to be back probably sooner than later and all of a sudden we got him three at-bats and he can pinch hit off the bench. He’s a guy that can play a couple different positions in the infield and you can give one of your guys a breather and run him in there and you feel pretty good about it.
On if he’s surprised by Ciriaco’s five straight hits
Not really. This guy can swing the bat a little bit. You look at his numbers in the major leagues it’s not .350 or anything like that but it’s solid, respectable numbers in the major leagues. He prepares well. It’s hard getting him playing time when he sits behind Simmons here and some of the other places he’s played he’s sit behind some pretty good shortstops
On Freddie Freeman leaving the game
He’s got a right wrist sprain. We are calling him day-to-day. He saw the specialist. He’s been battling since the Mets series. We’ve been trying to monitor not let him take BP just get him loose. But today it bothered him. That was the deal I made with him. I will let you play until I see that it starts bothering you and when that happens then it will be my call. Today was worse. We had our hand specialist here and he saw him. Hopefully it calms down and we get him back in the lineup.
On what caused Freeman’s injury
It was a swing in New York. It was the swing before he got that RBI single to tie it. He kind of tweaked it but he stayed in the game and got the RBI to tie it.
On the bullpen
Those guys did it in Boston, too. They gave us some nice innings at the end of the game. It’s nice to see. Usually when you get to them with our starters going six or seven, hopefully seven and eight, we can string some victories together.
On Jonny Gomes coming up gimpy
I saw the same thing. He said he was fine. We’ll have our trainers look at it and see how he goes with that.
**ALEX WOOD
On the game
It was good all the way around. Some clutch hitting, good pitching. I thought we played really well all the way around.
On his outing
It’s nice to be back home and get a good one at home under my belt after the way I started the year at home. That was good from my standpoint but really from a team standpoint it was a good win tonight.
On offense scratching out runs
I was sitting here watching the seventh and eighth inning thinking to myself, when we lose it’s always the other team has got to do everything in their power to beat us. Every single guy from start to finish, it’s a battle and a grind the whole night. Anytime they let up or have a moment of weakness, we’ve been capitalizing. It’s really fun to watch and really fun to be a part of.
On Ciriaco’s three hits in replacement of Simmons
That’s another thing that makes up a good ball club. A guy like Ciriaco who is playing behind the best shortstop in baseball gets in there and has an impact tonight. You see Castro tonight, not only does he get a pinch-hit AB for his first hit but it was a hit-and-run too. It’s pretty cool to watch.
On the bullpen
Awesome. I told Nick (Masset) when he came in, his sinker was nasty tonight. Really fun to watch. J.J. (Jim JOhnson) is always fun to watch, too. His stuff is so electric, throwing 95 mph sinker balls. He’s tough. And then (Jason) Grilli closed the door. It was really fun to watch.
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
On if his wrist injury happened during the recent road trip
Yeah it happened on Saturday, actually the at-bat where I got the base hit to tie the game, you guys noticed the swing before that it was a funky, weird, just-trying-to-foul-if-off swing. Just shot in the pain right there, and tried to play through it, tried to gut it out until Sunday. Just couldn’t make it.”
On if there was any way he was going to come out of the game Saturday
No, I wasn’t going to come out. I was originally going to try to play Sunday … I’m kind of stubborn in that area. You know I was just trying to make it to Sunday to get an injection after that game and take the day off on Monday but unfortunately, you know it takes a lot for me to come out of a game and not play in a game. I got an injection after I came out of the game (tonight), so I’ll probably be missing tomorrow and then hopefully be back Friday.
On how fortunate it is that the team’s hand doctor was present today
Yeah definitely, I did luck out. And with Dr.(Gary M.) Lourie here, he just did the injection and everything’s good, and hopefully with treatment tomorrow I’ll be back for the Mets series. Because that was the ideal plan, to get it done today and hopefully be able to be back in 48 hours which would be the start of Friday’s game against the Mets.
On the performance of Alex Wood tonight
Oh, he was spectacular. He gave us a chance to win the ballgame, gave us six strong innings, bullpen came in and shut it down. And you know it’s nice to see (Daniel) Castro with that hit-and-run. A lot of good things happened tonight.
On the performance of Pedro Ciriaco
He was huge. You saw that in spring training he was able to get the big hits in spring training and he came up here today in a big spot start and did it again for us, and that was huge for us. Hopefully (Andrelton) Simmons is healthy to go and ready to go tomorrow.
