David Wright: “It stings and it hurts. … They played better than us. They deserve to be champions. … You come so close to winning the World Series and there are different sets of emotions. There’s one where you’re frustrated and hurt because you’ve made it so far and you’ve come so close. But on the other side, you feel extremely proud of what everyone has done and all the work that was put in to get to this point. It’s tough now, but in the weeks ahead as we think about what we accomplished, it will bring a smile to everyone’s face.
Daniel Murphy: “You spend eight months with a group of men, you’re gonna get to know them just by hanging out with them, but to truly get to care and love the guy next to you I think is unique and that’s what I felt like we had in this group. I’ll miss each and every one of them this offseason. I most certainly think that this’ll be a group of guys that I continue to text with and stay in contact with, and that doesn’t happen with every ballclub during the offseason. I made lifelong friends this year.”
Lucas Duda: You’ve got to tip your hat to Hosmer there. It took some guts to do what he did. It was an outstanding read and I didn’t make the throw . . . like I said, no excuses. It’s on me.”
Curtis Granderson: “Our confidence will continue to stay high. Everyone will get home rest and relax. … It’s been a long season with a lot of good things to take away. There are still a lot of things to build off of, ways to improve. No matter how good anybody’s season was individually or as a team, there still are ways to get better.”
Travis d’Arnaud: “We definitely shocked a lot of the world making it this far. How much they’ve all grown this year, how much they’ve taught me this year. It’s gonna be awesome next year, and I’m really looking forward to the first day of spring training already.”
Sandy Alderson: “We’re going home disappointed. To me, it wasn’t a successful season if it wasn’t as successful as we all would have liked. We didn’t play really well.”
Jeurys Familia: “Everybody has to be proud in this room. Because when the season started, nobody believed that the Mets would be in this situation. Getting to the World Series and playing this game is amazing.”
Terry Collins: “I just told the players, I’ve done this for a long, long time and this is the most fun I’ve ever had in all the years. Tremendous season, all we had to deal with, but tremendous guys to be around, great experience. I’m very, very proud of them. You guys know last March or last June no one would ever have said we were going to be sitting where we are today.”
Eric Hosmer: “The way it ended last year, with everything that happened, such a magical run, you knew it couldn’t end like that again. You knew that story had to have a way better ending than losing Game 7.”
Ned Yost: “Once we tied it, I said, We’ve got this game. Just because our bullpen is so good. So really, after we tied it, I felt totally relaxed. I even said, ‘My heart should be beating faster than it is.'”
Salvador Perez: “You guys know what we do all season. We never quit. We never put our heads down. We never think about, ‘OK, the game is over.’ No. We always compete to the last out. And that’s what we do tonight.”
Chris Young: “If that game doesn’t epitomize what our club is all about, then I don’t know what does.”
