Clubhouse quotes from Kameron Loe, Elliott Johnson, Andrelton Simmons and manager Fredi Gonzalez following Wednesday's loss to the Mets.
**FREDI GONZALEZ
Obviously not the start that Kameron Loe was hoping for
“No, it was not. We didn’t help him either, it was a couple of plays where we gave up a couple of runs. Nevertheless, he got behind in counts on some of the hitters and walked a couple of guys. Big home run there by Duda, some extra-base hits. Overall he gave us a decent outing, what we expected, what we wanted – we were hoping he would give us five or six innings, and he was just an out or two short of that.
“I thought Freddy gave us a great couple of innings out of the bullpen, Varvaro the same thing. We had Dillon (Gee) on the ropes a couple of times and let him wiggle out of it.”
On the series and homestand
“If we would have lost yesterday’s game and won this one, we would have been happy because we won two out of three. And we’ve got to remember that we won two out of three. We won (three) series and swept a series. A 7-2 homestand is pretty good, we’ll take that every time. Off day tomorrow and go to Philadelphia.”
Is finishing with a loss like this any tougher to take at end of homestand and day before off day?
“No, Mikey will give us a great opportunity on Friday and keep it going. It’s funny, the game of baseball, you’re as good as the last game you play. I’ve gone in airplanes after going 9-1 and you lose that last game and feel terrible. Same thing, we won two out of three and happened to lose the last one, and you feel terrible. But we said our goal is to win series and that’s what we did, we won three of them.”
Miscommunication there between B.J. and Gattis on fly ball?
“I don’t know, I didn’t talk to B.J. during the game but I think he might have just taken his ball off the ball a little bit. Kind of heard Gattis coming at him. But we’ve still got to catch that ball.”
Will you have to wait to see how Teheran does next time out to see if goal was met by skipping his start?
“The goal was giving him a breather, and maybe not the next start, maybe a couple of starts down the road where he’s capable of going the distance or having a better start. That’s what we planned to do. We planned it a couple of weeks ago with Mike (Minor) and that didn’t work out; he (only) got a couple or three days extra.
“Sometimes you’ve got to think of the long haul. I felt real good today that we had a good opportunity. Again, if we make a couple of plays and we get a couple of bloop singles when we needed to it might have been a little different outcome.”
Freddy (Garcia) and Freddie (Freeman) the bright spots today?
“Yeah. It’s nice, we’ve seen Garcia a couple of times come out of the bullpen and he’s done a good job. I think he’s got (7-1/3) scoreless innings, and Freeman just continues to swing the bat.”
Schafer (quad contusion) should be OK Friday after day off today and team day off Thursday?
“Yeah, he should be good.”
**KAMERON LOE
On his performance, getting behind hitters
“Yeah, location wasn’t that good today. Sometimes the hitters that I did get ahead of, I struggled to put them away. Definitely didn’t have the action or the depth on my stuff that I had had recently. I think my arm angle was a little low. It just wasn’t good.”
How disappointing was this for you, getting this opportunity and having this happen?
“It’s a disappointment. I battled out there and gave it everything I had, but fell short today, and I’ll definitely improve on that. I’ve been pitching much better lately that I did today, so I know I’m better than that.”
Did you have a feeling early on that it just wasn’t there today?
“I felt great in the ‘pen. I think I was rushing a little bit once I got out there. Just didn’t stay back and let my arm work and get the good action that I’ve had on my stuff lately.”
Was that maybe from adrenaline in your first big-league start since ’07?
“Maybe a little bit. Need to just back it off a little bit.”
**ELLIOT JOHNSON
On Dillon Gee
“He’s a guy that can pitch. You saw what he did. He’s got three or four pitches that he’s throwing in the strike zone when he feels like it. If you’ve got four pitches that you can command, it’s going to be a tough day at the plate. It’s hard to get on anything in particular, especially when he’s throwing strike 1 every time. I was down 0-1 all three of my at-bats against him. Just to scrape out an infield single was kind of a victory, you know what I mean? Because he works ahead, then goes on both sides of the plate and keeps you off-balance with his off-speed stuff.”
Can you still feel good about 7-2 homestand?
“Sure, in hindsight. But every game you play, you’re not playing it like, ‘We won two so we can give them this one.’ We want to win it. The Dodgers are playing well. We want the 1-seed. We don’t want to give up anything. If they’re going to keep on playing well, we need to play just as well or better. We need to go ahead and continue to get the wins against teams we feel like we’re better than, or even if we don’t feel like we match up that day we still need to try and do the best we can. We want that 1-seed. That’s what we’re going for right now.”
**ANDRELTON SIMMONS
On Braves’ position, nice to see the magic number down to 10?
“Yeah, just keep doing what we’re doing, try and keep everybody healthy, hopefully clinch soon so we can rest the guys and hopefully get J-Hey back soon and a couple other guys.”
Tough way to end it, but a good homestand at 7-2?
“Yeah, we did well at home. We played well. Our backups got some reps in, they did well too. Got Gattis back, swinging well. We’ve just to keep everybody healthy.”
