Braves quotes from Ervin Santana, Freddie Freeman and manager Fredi Gonzalez after Wednesday’s 6-1 loss to the Brewers.
**ERVIN SANTANA
Looked like you were struggling to find your release point or mechanics in first inning
“I was a little bit off the outside corner, I was just trying to pull my arm too much to the first-base side. That’s why I didn’t have that location. After that I just re-focused and tried to hit the spot.”
Was that with your fastball primarily, or with every pitch?
“It was almost every pitch. In the first few innings I didn’t have any location, for the most part just trying to keep the ball down. That’s what happens when you make a mistake.”
Was it same mechanical problem in St. Louis?
“No, it was not. I’ll just keep it going, throw a bullpen day after tomorrow and just get them next time.”
Do you just look at this as two bad starts, not one that was a continuation of same problems as start before?
“It happens. Bad starts are going to happen. So I just have to be prepared and get my mind right, stay positive and just keep throwing strikes.”
On the five-pitch walk to Lohse after first-pitch strike
“That was a little frustrating. Because it’s not right to walk the pitcher. It’s not right. So that was a little frustrating.”
Take any positives from being able to hang in there and pitch seven innings after 4-run first?
“Well, yeah. The positive was that I threw seven innings. I was just trying to keep my team in the game, re-focus and just keep the ball down for the most part.”
More on first inning struggles
“The first inning was out of focus.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On Santana’s outing
“Just a couple pitches. Obviously the slider to Reynolds there in the first inning, but just a couple pitches. I thought other than that, he did a nice job, really. They hit the ball hard in the first inning to come out with the bases loaded and then he made a mistake to Reynolds and put us down 4-0. I like the way our club bounced back and not giving an opportunity, to get a shutout, we scored one. And then he battled the rest of the way. So we got behind. Lohse pitched pretty good. It seemed like he hit all the quadrants of the strike zone, in, up, down, away with all his pitches and really other than Justin we didn’t get any good swings at him.”
Something wrong with Santana, i.e. walk to Lohse?
“You see it all the time, it’s hard to face a pitcher. We see it against us and you see it, whether it’s lack of focus or a little bit of a lack of concentration, facing the opposing pitcher. That was the same inning where he gives up the ball to Gomez, next pitch. But he’s fine as far as health-wise, we’ve just got to eliminate some of those, the ball that Reynolds, it was just a cement-mixer slider that didn’t do much.”
On hitters giving looks to the umpire, that more from Lohse keeping them off-balance or what
“I think so. I thought Brian (Knight) did a nice job. There was just only one pitch the whole night that was up, I think it was C.J. Other than that I thought he – I can’t tell from the dugout in or out – but I can tell up or down and I thought it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Brian.”
On Lohse doing this all season so far, sort of flying under the radar
“He mixes it well. You expect a fastball, he throws you a little cutter. You expect a cutter, he throws a fastball. He’s not overpowering but he’ll mix in a changeup, he’ll mix a big curveball. He kept us off-balance today.”
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
On Kyle Lohse
“He pitched good, kept us off-balance all night.”
Was Lohse exploiting the strike zone the ump was giving him?
“Yeah, he was just going in and out. We were aggressive against him. He made a lot of mistakes tonight and we just popped them up, it seemed like. I had a few myself and we just didn’t get it done tonight.”
More frustrating against a guy like him, who’s a good pitcher but not overpowering?
“Yeah, definitely. You want to go out there and put great at-bats on any guy you face, and today we got some pitches to hit and we just didn’t hit them.”
On not continuing offensive momentum of the three-game winning streak
“We’re not going to score nine runs every game, so you’ve got to go out there and win some close ones. Magic (Ervin Santana) only made two mistakes tonight. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get any runs tonight to help him out.”
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