Today marked the beginning of my ninth Philiies’ spring training.  Pitchers and catchers were scheduled to come out at 11:00 AM, so I was there at 9:00 AM.

Since a lot of position players were among the early reports, they came out at 9:30 AM and  performed their stretching exercises before breaking up on Ashburn, Schmidt, and Roberts Fields for BP.  The groups batted for about 15 minutes and had coaches and instructors on each field.

• Ashburn Field – Coach Dillon and Coach Ochart observing
• Group One – Hoskins, McCutchen, Quinn with Coach Castro pitching
• Group Two – Gregorius, Kingery, Torreyes with Coach Williams pitching
• Schmidt Field – Coach Guerrero and Coach Segedin observing
• Group One – Mahtook, Walker, N. Williams, Forsythe with Coach Legg pitching
• Group Two – Haseley, Moniak, L. Williams with Coach Guerrero pitching
• Roberts Field – Coach Robinson observing
• Group One – Bohm, Gosselin, Listi with Coach Abad pitching
• Group Two – Gamboa, Hall, Maton with Coach Figueroa pitching

After a few minutes of long toss, the infielders split up onto Ashburn and Schmidt while the outfielders went into Spectrum Field.  I found out later they worked on ground balls and balls off the wall with Figueroa, Abad, and Guerrero.

The infielders took infield practice –

• Ashburn Field with Castro, Bowa, and Williams
• Hoskins 1B, Kingery 2B, Gregorius and Gamboa SS, Bohm and Torreyes 3B
• Schmidt Field with Malloy, Jones, and Legg
• Hall 1B, Forsythe 2B, Williams SS, Listi and Gosselin 3B

They were done before 11:00 AM when the pitchers and catchers took the field.

The pitchers split into 3 groups.  The group that threw today was on Schmidt Field.  The other two groups didn’t throw and were on Ashburn and Carlton.  It took a while to determine who was in which group.  Here’s what I’ve got –

• Schmidt Field
• Group One – Hammer, Medina, Nola, and Romero
• Group Two – Kelley, Llovera, Russ, Sanchez, and Wheeler
• Group Three – Brogdon, Cleavinger, Irvin, and Pivetta
• Ashburn Field
• Alvarez, Arano, Arrieta, Davis, Howard, Jones, Liriano, Morgan, Stock, Velasquez
• Carlton Field
• Dohy, Dominguez, Eflin, Garcia, Gilbert, Guerra, McClain, Norris, Parker, Rosso, Suarez, Warren

The catchers and pitchers on Schmidt did their stretching and long tossing and went up on the Seven Mounds to complete their bullpens.  After they completed bullpens, the pitchers went over to Schmidt Field for their PFPs.  The catchers did defensive work on Schmidt and BP on Roberts in two groups –

• Group One – Realmuto, Knapp, Lartigue
• Group Two – Grullon, Conley, Marchan, Bethancourt

The pitchers on Ashburn and Carlton were not scheduled to throw.  They did stretching, throwing, and PFPs.

PFPs included –

• 1-3
• 3-1
• bunts
• 1-6
• pickoffs at 1B
• pickoffs at 2B
• bunts with a play at home

Brodzinski, Whitt, Wathan, and Stumpo worked with the catchers.

Price, Chaves, Arroyo, Gott, Plesac and a bunch of media types crowded the Seven Mounds to watch the bullpens.

I’ve seen all the position players except for six – Harrison, Segura, Harper, Bruce, Martini, and Szczur.  It’s no big deal.  They aren’t due until next week.  And they may be here for all I know.  But, if they aren’t here, 65 of 71 players are.

With the beginning of major league camp, the rehabbers, co-ops, and other early reports have diminished to 34 players, and includes –

• 25 Pitchers – Brandon Ramey, Tyler McKay, Spencer Van Scoyoc, Jaylen Smith, Jake Kinney, Ethan Lindow, Connor Seabold, Bailey Falter, Eudiver Avendano, Luke Leftwich, Kyle Young, Tyler Hallead, Ben Brown, Lizardo Herrera, Sandro Rosario, Trevor Bettencourt, Brian Auerbach, Carlos Francisco (WPT), Josh Tols, Robinson Martinez, Jose Jimenez, Nick Fanti, Nicoly Pina, Tyler Carr, Andrew Brown
• 2 Catchers -Edgar Cabral, Rodolfo Duran
• 4 Infielders – Jamari Baylor, Luis Garcia, T.J. Rivera, Grenny Cumana
• 3 Outfielders – Carlos De La Cruz, Jose Pujols, Oduble Herrera,

Most of the above are rehabbing.  They were joined by a slew of players who will take part in their minor league mini camp.  Around 40 players went through physicals today.  I recognized about 2 dozen.  But can only remember a handful – Eastman, Ross, Ortiz, Hennigan, McGarry.  Big league camp kept me busy.

Knapp injured his rib cage.  De Los Santos a hamstring.  I know that there is video of McCutchen out there.  I watched the same BP in person, all his turns.  I provided a pessimistic report after his last BP on Monday.  He didn’t bat Tuesday.  Today he was wearing a “sleeve” on his knee.  Hope it’s one of those copper ones.  You can’t see it in the video from that WIP guy, but he’s not completing his weight transfer, it’s tentative; and he is generating a majority of his swing with his upper half.  I know everyone’s optimistic.  I know what Girardi said in the presser.  But, I remember the Utley’s 2012 spring training when he was “fine” and then at the start of the season he was placed on the 15-day DL … for 10 weeks.  Fool me once …