CLEARWATER, Fla. — Phillies scouts first watched Pedro Martinez pitch on July 7.

Tuesday afternoon, he threw a simulated game in front of general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. In between, the Phillies won nine straight games. Martinez says he watched every one of them since signing a one-year contract on July 15.
“I am going to take my time here and do what I have to do and get ready to be just like them,” Martinez said after throwing 64 pitches in a four-inning simulated game. “I don’t want to look any less than they are right now. They are a No. 1 team, they are defending champs, and I want to look like a champ out there. I don’t want to look like a minor league pitcher or less than they are. I want to look like them and I want to be able to help them to continue to win.”
He took another step Tuesday, using all of his pitches while squaring off against six Phillies minor leaguers. It was the first time Martinez faced live hitters since pitching a simulated game for Phillies brass on July 10, and the first time Amaro saw him face live hitters since when he was a member of the Mets. The reports from both Amaro and Martinez were positive, leaving open the possibility that Martinez w then from there on go and do whatever we have to do,” Martinez said. “If it is another simulated, I will do another simulated. If it is a game, it’s a game. I’m not disappointed with the way things went today. For 12, maybe 14 days without seeing a batter and coming back and being able to see guys that are consistently playing baseball, it’s a really big step for me.”
The stakes were small Tuesday. Martinez pitched with no defense behind him, and no umpire behind the plate. His opponents were six low-level minor leaguers, two of them lefthanded, four of them righthanded. Carlos Arroyo, the pitching coach for the Phillies’ rookie Gulf Coast League squad, stood behind him throughout the session. He faced five batters in each inning, then walked to the dugout for a break that was designed to replicate the downtime during a normal game.
Martinez threw each of his pitches — four-seam fastball, sinker, changeup, curveball, cutter — with varying degrees of effectiveness. During the first two innings, he concentrated on his footwork on the mound, several times stepping off the rubber and resetting his feet.
In the third inning, he began to look and feel much sharper.
“I finished really well, even better than I started,” said the 37-year-old Martinez, who has been hampered by shoulder and groin injuries the past three seasons. “I was feeling better after I got going. More confident, and more comfortable on the mound. I was able to let go. It’s different. When you are not on the mound as consistently as you have to, you’ve got to be cautious not to rush your legs. You could pull a hamstring or have a bad arm slot. You could hurt something.
“So you get comfortable on the mound, you get comfortable with your stepping, you get comfortable with feeling the bottom of the mound. Those are things that play a key role in your delivery, confidence to let your arm go, especially players like me who have been hurt before. You play cautiously. That’s what I was trying to do the first two innings. As soon as I got to the stretch position, I knew I was ready to go. I let go.”
Amaro had a similar assessment.
“The ball seemed to be coming out of his hand much better in the second two innings than the first,” the general manager said. “He utilized all his pitches. I was impressed with his ability to throw his off-speed pitches for strikes. I think it was a good step for him and we’ll continue to progress him.”
The Phillies’ recent success lessens the urgency to get Martinez ready. Rodrigo Lopez allowed one run in six innings Monday night and has allowed five runs in 17 innings in three starts with the Phillies. Amaro said he was “hopeful” that Martinez would make a rehab start Sunday, but said that a definite schedule depends on how the pitcher’s body responds to his work over the next two days.
@Tab0: “I’m excited about the fact that it was four innings, at 15 pitches an inning, on a hot, humid d

und, and I am able to execute some of the things that
I would execute. I feel comfortable with it. For the time, and the up and down and flying in and out all those days, the needle in my shoulder — to me it was a plus.
“I’m not going to really brag about this because it was nothing, but I am satisfied with the way things are at this time.”