Severino Gonzalez threw two innings in Group 3’s game against Group 4 today.  I had spent the previous innings watching Groups 1 and 2 square off, but came over to Ashburn Field to observe Gonzalez.  He faced Nick Ferdinand, Cameron Perkins, and Edgar Duran in his first inning.  He threw 5 strikes to Ferdinand before finally striking him out swinging.  He threw 3 strikes to Perkins before tempting him with two purpose pitches low and just off the plate.  Perkins almost bit on the second one before popping out to first in foul territory.  Duran grounded out to first on a 1-1 pitch.  Three balls in 15 pitches, and two of the balls were an attempt to induce the batter two swing.   All pitches were low in or below the strike zone.  A well-pitched, impressive inning.

Gonzalez started his next inning with runners placed on first and third.  He faced 5 hitters and retired them all – Carlos Alonso, Chris  Serritella, Brandon Short, Tyler Henson, and Harold Martinez.  The runner on first broke for second on a high pitch that Valle mishandled into a passed ball.  Alonzo then flied out to deep left center on a 2-0 pitch.  The left fielder made an over the shoulder catch on the warning track.  Serritella flied out to center on the first pitch he saw.  Short popped up on an 0-2 pitch to shortstop.  Henson swung at the first pitch and was retired on a diving catch by the right fielder that might have been an easier catch for the center fielder.  Martinez flied out to left on a 2-1 pitch.

I saw Gonzalez several times last season with Clearwater.  He was a slightly built kid then.  He looks like he may have put on a little weight.  Not much, but he’s not as thin as I remember.

Each inning during these games, the coaches set up a situation for both teams to work through.  Runners are placed on the bases and the number of outs is set by a coach.  Batters are given signals and fielders defend based on the situation and number of outs.  In some instances, the runners break early to induce a rundown.

Mitch Gueller pitched the first two innings for Group 4.  He faced 7 batters, walking one, no hits.  His inherited situational runner scored from second on two ground balls when Mora beat a relay throw to first.  He looked good.  He kept most of his pitches down.

Ethan Stewart pitched the first two innings for Group 3.  He faced 7 batters, walking two, striking out one, and allowing one hit, a solid line drive to right center by Brock Stassi that scored a run.  Once again, missed pitches were low.

Shane Martin also threw 2 innings.  Jose Mayorga led off and was getting around late on Martin’s offerings but managed to drop a double down the right field line.  Martin got Pierce swinging.  He retired Tromp on a fly ball to center after Mayorga was thrown out trying to advance on a passed ball by Jake Sweaney.  In Martin‘s second inning, Green singled, Cozens hit a ground ball double down the left field line.  One run scored on a ground ball, another on a balk.  Martin faced 8 hitters giving up 3 hits, striking out one.

At his point, Gonzalez was up on the other field.  I caught bits and piece of Delvy Francisco but was more interested in Gonzalez.  Francisco struck out two in his first inning after a pop fly double down the left field line by Knight.  In his second inning, he gave up singles to Stassi and Willie Carmona before Larry Greene chased them home with a triple that one bounced to the wall in left center.  Justin Parr followed with a single.

Other highlights included an RBI double to right center by Zach Green after a Samuel Hiciano single off James Buckley, a JP Crawford triple to right center off Chris Nichols.  Francisco froze Crawford with a nice off-speed pitch for a called third strike.  Carlos Tocci took 3 consecutive called strikes against Julio Reyes.  (He was hitless in the 3 at bats I saw and didn’t make good contact – a soft fly to right center and a ground out to third. )

Catcher Corey Bass took a foul ball off his throwing hand.  He may have broken his ring finger.  He was removed from the game and checked on the bench before being taken to the clubhouse.

Practices have been a little more demanding than those for the major leaguers.  There is a lot more running.  Infield and outfield fungoes are hit to the fielders during batting practice.  They stressed the same base running fundamentals that they did in the major league camp.  They ran them more often and harder.  And they spray painted the inside corner of the bags blue to highlight the correct contact point.  The outside corner of first base was spray painter red.  Today, the coach said if the rest of the group wouldn’t have to run their last trip around bases if one of the young Latin players could do it under 15 seconds.  I don’t know who he was, but he was the most popular kid in the group when he rounded the bases in 14.83 seconds.

They have batting practice at least twice each day once with one of the coaches pitching and once in the outside cages where they work on bunting in one pair of cages and swing away in another pair.  It was while watching this practice that I noticed that Luis Encarnacion and Jose Pujols do NOT wear batting gloves.

I noticed that they have a yellow string positioned about knee high across the bullpen home plates between the ball fields they use for the games.

I attended several of the Phillies games.  I saw Tanaka pitch Thursday.  I had watched him on TV the previous weekend.  Thursday he was a little more hittable.  A lot more guys made decent contact.  Galvis took him deep, real deep.

After the Orioles game Friday, somebody must have been pissed.  The Phillies were playing an intrasquad game before batting practice when the gates were opened.  In fact, the Astros had to take BP inside in the Phillies clubhouse, Sandberg didn’t give up the field.  Even still, they were no hit for several innings before scoring 11 runs.  If you didn’t see the game, Franco played 1B and turned a 3-6-3 DP like he had been doing it for years.

More intrasquads tomorrow, then games against other organizations begin on Tuesday.  I’m leaning toward following the younger guys to Dunedin rather than watching the AAA and AA in Clearwater.

Oh, I asked one of the coaches about Kevin Brady.  He thought he was in camp.  When I showed him the Group Roster, he was less sure of himself.  I’ll continue to pursue until resolved.