Fightins' Arquimedes Gamboa opens season with a blast

May 5—Arquimedes Gamboa opened the Reading Fightin Phils' 2021 season with a bang Tuesday, leading off with a home run in the home opener.

For a guy who struggled mightily at the plate in his first Double-A go-round in 2019, it was a sight to behold.

Gamboa, 23, looks visibly stronger and more confident at the plate than he did as one of the youngest everyday players in the Eastern League two years ago.

He had a big spring training with the bat and carried that into the Fightins' first game, a 12-4 loss to Erie.

"He's ready to go," said Reading manager Shawn Williams. "The strength that he's put on is impressive. He's on a mission.

"Maybe after the year he had in 2019 he wants to show everybody how he plays this game and how good of a player he is."

Gamboa was signed for $900,000 as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela in 2014 and was once rated among the top shortstops in the Philadelphia Phillies system. He was ranked the No. 20 prospect in the organization before the 2017 season; he entered 2018 as the Phillies' second-best shortstop prospect.

He was a mid-season All-Star with Clearwater in 2017 and led the Florida State League in fielding percentage among shortstops. He didn't hit much, batting just .214.

His woes at the plate got even worse in 2019, when his .188 average was among the lowest among the Eastern League's everyday players. He's since dropped off the Phillies' top prospects lists.

Gamboa appears to have added strength to his upper body since last playing in Reading. He's listed at 6-foot, 190 pounds in the Phillies' media guide, 15 pounds more than he was listed prior to the 2019 season. It's hard to say exactly how much weight Gamboa has put on in the last 18 months or how he did it. He declined an interview request, and the Phillies' media guide has traditionally been inaccurate when it comes to updating player weights.

Williams noticed a changed Gamboa right away when players convened in Clearwater, Fla., in March, and said he's been "getting after it, especially the last couple months" in his conditioning efforts.

"He's on a mission," Williams said.

Gamboa's 2019 numbers weren't all bad. He had a career-high 14% walk rate, which is good. He stole a career-high 21 bases, more than doubling his previous high.

Most importantly, he caught the ball. He committed just eight errors in 113 games. His range was not impressive; in fact his 3.76 range factor is one of the lowest in club history for shortstops.

But his .980 fielding percentage is second-highest in club history, trailing only Freddy Galvis (.982 in 2010). That's better than guys named Rollins, Sandberg, Franco or Schmidt, all of whom once manned the same spot in the Reading infield and went on to become major league All-Stars.

"I thought he did a lot of really good things," said Williams, Gamboa's manager in 2019. "As a whole, he did a lot of great things. His defense was outstanding. He made eight errors playing shortstop every day; that's incredible. He took a bunch of walks, which was great. Just little things like that, which is gonna make him a better player."

Gamboa was invited to big league spring training in 2020 and played in 12 games with Philadelphia, but he wasn't invited back this season. Maybe he took that as a message.

"(Sometimes) you need to fail," Williams said. "If you're always succeeding (in the minors), and then you get to the big league level (and don't succeed right away) you don't know how to react. It's important for guys to fail down here; that's how you learn."

For openers >> Reading's 12-4 loss to Erie Tuesday matched the most lopsided defeat in a home opener in club history and set the record for most runs allowed in a home opener.

The previous high for most runs allowed and most lopsided defeat came in a 10-2 loss to Vermont in 1984.

Reading is 31-23 in home openers and 28-26 in season openers since its 1967 debut as a Phillies affiliate.

Full house >> The Fightin Phils announced an in-park attendance of 2,267 for Tuesday's season opener, close to the COVID-19 mitigation cap they set before the season.

The club said Tuesday it plans to return to full capacity on June 8, when it begins a six-game homestand against Hartford. That came on the heels of Gov. Tom Wolf's announcement earlier in the day that most of the state's COVID regulations will be lifted, including attendance restrictions at outdoor venues, on May 31.

Having a ball >> As part of Major League Baseball's COVID mitigation strategy, minor league clubs are not using bat boys.

During Reading's home opener Tuesday, Fightins reliever Taylor Lehman pitched in, running out of the dugout to retrieve foul balls and bats. Manager Shawn Williams even ran out once to retrieve a foul ball that rolled back near the on-deck circle.