LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Don't turn lunch on days you're scheduled to pitch into a high school reunion.
Be a tad wiser about the ribbing you get from teammates.
The education of Gavin Floyd is progressing nicely, as the biggest bonus baby in the history of the Philadelphia Phillies adjusts to pitching to men instead of boys. Floyd's potential netted a club-record signing bonus of $4.2 million last summer, but his craft requires a wealth of knowledge bought on time.
"So many of the guys just know more than I do," Floyd said. "Some might not have as much talent as I do and some might have more, but they all have experience that I lack, about the mental and even physical parts of the game."
A native of Severna Park who starred at Mount St. Joseph High, Floyd is the only teen-ager on the Lakewood BlueClaws, the middle of the Phillies' three Single-A teams. His next start comes tonight, at the Hickory (N.C.) Crawdads.
The Delmarva Shorebirds and the Hagerstown Suns are among the competition in the South Atlantic League. His teammates include a smattering of Caribbeans and former collegians, like his big brother. While Michael Floyd spent spring 2001 playing for the University of South Carolina, Gavin was striking out overmatched kids from Archbishop Curley and Loyola High.
"I have to remind myself every day that he's only 19 years old," said Ken Westray, BlueClaws pitching coach, "but there's a reason he was drafted that high."
The right-hander, the fourth selection overall in the 2001 draft, measures 6 feet 5 and 210 pounds. Floyd's fastball has been clocked in the mid-90s, and Baseball America has rated his curveball as the best in the Phillies' organization. But that breaking pitch spent the first half of the season on the shelf.
The standard procedure with all young arms is to force them to develop a third pitch, and Floyd was under orders to throw his changeup in situations in which he had come to rely on his curve. Other than that mandate, Floyd has been on his own as he settles into the rhythms of professional baseball that are second nature to BlueClaws manager Jeff Manto, a name that rings a bell with Orioles fans.
Manto was the third baseman when Cal Ripken tied and broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games record, but he totaled little more than 700 big-league at-bats. With 243 home runs in the minors, Manto could have been the role model for Crash Davis, the role Kevin Costner played in Bull Durham.
