Gonzalez: Ramos "determined to lead this rotation to where it needs to be"

JUPITER, Fla. - Nationals left-hander Gio Gonzalez is coming off his best outing of the spring, pitching four scoreless innings while striking out five and only allowing two hits and a walk last Thursday.

After his effort, he turned all of the attention to batterymate Wilson Ramos for confidently guiding him through his afternoon.

"For some reason, just talking to Wilson it looked like he knew what he wanted to do," Gonzalez said. "His gameplan was almost as simple as, 'Just follow me and I'll get what you need.' Even pitches I shook him off to go after another one, he stuck with his guns and executed. I mean, he was turning me on the page. It seems like he's focused and looks more kind of determined to lead this rotation to where it needs to be."

Ramos is vital to the success of the Nats, who are built around a potentially historic rotation. Last season, Ramos helped them to a league-best 3.03 ERA with the highlight coming in the regular season finale when he was behind the plate calling all 104 pitches of Jordan Zimmermann's no-hitter.

"When I'm 100 percent sure that pitch is right in that moment, I will call it and call it and call it until he feels good on the mound," Ramos said. "If he's thinking of another pitch, I will come to the mound and talk to him. When I put my finger down two times that's because I'm 100 percent sure that pitch is right in that situation. I know a lot of those hitters."

The 27-year-old Ramos is entering his sixth season with the Nats. In 2014, he batted .267 with 11 home runs and 47 RBIs in 88 games. For his career, "The Buffalo" is a .269/.317/.432 hitter. His season-high for home runs was 16 in 2013.

"He's big for us," Nationals manager Matt Williams said. "Where he hits in the lineup, generally he will have lots of opportunities and drive those runs in. He knows how to do it. He uses the middle of the ballpark a lot. Hits the ball the other way well. He's swinging it good. He's feeling good. Legs are good so far and hasn't had any issues, so I like where he's at."

Ramos appears confident at the plate this spring, hitting .300 (9-for-30) with four RBIs through 11 games.

"It feels great right now," Ramos said. "I was watching a couple videos on the 2013 season and I was doing a little thing different. I've been trying to work on my hitting position. That makes me feel so happy right now. I want to be ready for the season. We got a couple more days and I'm working on that."

One of the top keys for the Nats is having a healthy Ramos in the lineup. That hasn't been the case for the most part during his time in Washington.

A broken bone in his left hand on opening day, followed by nagging hamstring problems, caused Ramos to play in only 88 games last season. A knee surgery in 2012 and more hamstring issues in 2013 limited him to just 103 games over those two seasons. His season-high for games played came in 2011, when he appeared in 113 games. Ramos did show impressive durability in the 2014 National League Division Series, where he caught every inning of the four-game series, including the heartbreaking loss in Game 2, which took 6 hours, 23 minutes to complete 18 innings.

Note: The Nats have reassigned right-hander Bruce Billings to minor league camp. The 29-year-old has allowed three runs on five hits, with three strikeouts and one walk in 4 1/3 innings this spring.