CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Gulf Coast League might not be at the bottom of professional baseball's barrel, but you can reach out and touch it from there.

It's the noon-games-under-the-broiling-Florida-sun league. The seagulls-in-the-outfield league. The need-to-be-promoted-three-levels-just-to-make-it-to-advanced-Class A league.

Righthander Scott Mathieson, 25, is happy to be here.

Happy to be able to stand on the mound at the Joe DiMaggio Complex, a city-owned facility that the GCL Phillies are using while the Carpenter Complex across the street undergoes an extreme makeover that will add a second story to the structure. Happy to face hitters 5, 6, 7, 8 years younger than he is. Happy to just still be playing ball.

Now, let's be totally honest. When the Phillies were in the Tampa Bay area recently to play the Rays, he would have much rather been staying with the big-league team in the plush waterfront Renaissance Vinoy in St. Petersburg than commuting 40 minutes each way from his home in Pasco County to work out in near-anonymity. Who wouldn't?

Making it harder to deal with is the fact that there was a time when there was no reason to imagine he wouldn't be in the majors instead of a rookie league at this point of his career. He made his major league debut on June 17, 2006, a rising star in the system. He was on his way.

Three elbow surgeries in 20 months have a way of knocking the stuffing out of the best-laid plans.

So when he pitched two innings of relief against the GCL Pirates on June 25 - no runs, no hits, no walks, three strikeouts - it might not have been a blip on baseball's radar screen. But he couldn't have been more excited if it were the World Series.

It was the first time he had pitched in a real game since August 2007. His fastball was consistently 92 to 94 mph and topped out at 96.

Heavy rains delayed his next appearance until last Saturday, when he lacked command, which could have been a result of the long layoff, against the GCL Blue Jays in Dunedin. He said in an e-mail that he "felt great." He's scheduled to pitch again today and also is throwing simulated games the day after he pitches to get used to working back-to-back.

"I'm going to play as long as I can. If the Phillies end up releasing me or I don't play [professionally] next year, I'll play in a men's league. I mean, I love playing baseball," he said recently, standing in front of his locker at Bright House Field.

"I'm just worried about my next outing, and we'll go from there. I think I've gotten to a point now where I'm just excited to be back pitching. It's been so long. It's nice to be able to play, finally."

Mathieson isn't kidding himself. He knows that, realistically, making it back to the big leagues is probably a longshot. He knows that the organization isn't counting on him, at least not the way it did back when Baseball America rated him the Phillies fifth-best prospect in 2005.

Those were the days. That year, he went to the prestigious Arizona Fall League and finished second in strikeouts. In 2006, he pitched for his native Canada in the inaugural World Baseball Classic and was Opening Day starter at Double A Reading. For the R-Phils, he held opponents to a .221 batting average.

He got his first major league win in August. Then, on Sept. 2 against Atlanta, he was forced to leave the game with a sprained right elbow after only six pitches.

He had his first Tommy John reconstructive elbow surgery at the end of that month. It was a setback, but, hey, he was still young. And aren't pitchers supposed to come back from the procedure stronger and better than ever?

After making seven rehab appearances at three different minor league outposts in 2007, he needed ulnar nerve transposition surgery in August.

His second Tommy John surgery was in May 2008.

"You think, 'Not this again,' " he said. "It's tough. It's not an easy thing to miss the game for 10 months, a year, sometimes longer. And then to do it all again is like somebody kicking you in the stomach. You look back and say, 'Gosh, do I really have to do this all over again?' "

He never came close to quitting, though.

"I had an opportunity to play at the highest level, with some of the best players in the game," he explained. "There are very few people who even get a chance to play in the minor leagues. It's an opportunity I personally can't walk away from. I don't want to have an injury put me out of the game. I want somebody to either tell me I'm not good enough or go out on my own terms. I don't want, 'Who knows what could have been?' "

He was asked to complete this sentence: It will all have been worth it if . . .

"If I can pitch pain-free and get through a whole season," he said. "If I get to a point where I'm out there every day and forget I had surgery, it's definitely worth it. It doesn't matter where. If I go to [low Class A] Williamsport and I get hit around and I can't compete and I have to say, 'This is it' or the Phillies tell me this is it, it's worth it to me, because I gave it everything I had. I don't ever want to shortchange myself."

No matter what league he's playing in. *