Andrew Painter has taken his lumps in triple-A. Adding him to the Phillies’ roster in September could still bring benefits.

From the day Andrew Painter arrived at spring training, the expectation — set by none other than the Phillies’ highest-ranking baseball executive — was that he could be pitching in the majors by midsummer.

The outlook from behind the plate didn’t seem as certain.

It wasn’t that Painter lacks the talent, or the poise, or the maturity to make his big-league debut this season. It was just, well, Garrett Stubbs, the floor is yours.

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“When you have a 22-year-old kid, and coming off Tommy John [elbow surgery] — and it’s his first time in triple A," Stubbs said by phone this week before catching Painter in Omaha, Neb., “all things considered, the expectation for me was, can you be healthy the rest of the year? Can you learn to navigate a lineup in a triple-A setting and get your feel back for pitches that you were throwing a year and a half ago? That was really my expectation, or my goal for him.

“Obviously, the expectation publicly was a little different. I heard rumors about wanting him to come up in July and different date deadlines of when they were expecting him in the big leagues. I certainly didn’t have those expectations. And not because I don’t think he’s an incredible pitcher. But everything that I’ve heard from everybody coming off of TJ is it takes a minute to get that feel back.

“So, seeing Painter pitch into what will be September and be healthy, to me, that’s a win,” Stubbs said.

On that count, everyone agrees. Painter has made every start — 23, in all — since opening the season at low-A Clearwater. He’s up to 103⅔ innings, matching his career-high total from 2022. And the Phillies don’t plan to shut down their top prospect — a consensus top-10 prospect in the sport — before season’s end, according to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

But after giving up six runs on nine hits and three walks in six innings Thursday night, Painter has a 5.36 ERA in 19 starts for triple-A Lehigh Valley. He has given up 99 hits, including 15 homers, and issued 41 walks. Opponents are hitting .273 against him.

Oh, and that “July-ish” estimate that Dombrowski famously outlined for Painter to make his highly anticipated debut? It has been pushed back.

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It is nearly September, though. Major league rosters will expand to 28 players, including a 14th pitcher, on Monday. Beginning Wednesday, the Phillies will play 15 consecutive games without a day off.

So, maybe it isn’t a bad time to use a six-man rotation, at least for one turn, as the Phillies were poised to do two weeks ago before losing Zack Wheeler for the season. Not only could they give extra rest to No. 1 starter Cristopher Sánchez and fellow lefties Ranger Suárez and Jesús Luzardo, but Painter could also wet his feet in the majors.

“We’ll discuss everything,” Dombrowski said. “We’ll talk about all different type of potential things that we can do.”

Let’s dive in on Painter’s struggles in triple A and the potential benefits to making his major-league debut before the end of the regular season.

To be fair, Dombrowski never actually said Painter would be in the majors by July. But it was implicit in December when he disclosed the Phillies’ plan for Painter’s workload as he returned from two years without pitching.

“We’re going to save a lot of his innings until we get to July-ish for the big-league level,” Dombrowski said then. “If you’re going to pitch in July — it might be June; it might be August — you can’t use too many [innings] at the minor-league level at that point, too."

Painter arrived in triple A in the first week of May with 11⅓ innings on his odometer from four starts for Clearwater. And after three scoreless innings in his first start for Lehigh Valley and a 2.65 ERA through four triple-A starts, “July-ish” looked like a realistic major-league ETA.

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“But any time you send a young guy to triple A, I think there’s going to be lumps,” Phillies minor-league director Luke Murton said by phone this week. “There’s going to be learning experiences for them.”

As it turned out, Painter wasn’t immune to the lumps.

Painter’s struggles aren’t a reflection of the quality of his stuff, according to Stubbs. His fastball touched 97 mph Thursday night and has averaged 96.8 mph overall this season. The shapes of his curveball and slider have been encouraging. Against Omaha, he threw 32 changeups, a newer pitch that’s still developing.

But the root of Painter’s problems are command and consistency. He walked at least three batters in eight starts. In early August, he got knocked around for 12 runs on 14 hits in two starts against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Last week, he sidestepped four walks to allow only one run in five innings against Durham.

“He has pitches where he throws them, and it’s like, ‘That’s Andy Painter,’” Stubbs said. “And then there’s pitches where he throws them, and it’s not the one that I just saw previously.”

It isn’t uncommon for pitchers in their first season after Tommy John surgery. For every Jacob deGrom, who comes back and dominates, there are dozens of pitchers who take longer to find their presurgery form. A few notable recent examples:

“And you’re talking about major-league pitchers who know themselves very, very well,” Murton said. “Sometimes it takes them a long time to come back from this, just to really find their command, their release point. A lot of times the stuff comes back before the command.

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“At the end of the day, Andrew Painter is going to be who he wants to be and who we’re all expecting him to be in the future. I think this was a great learning experience and development opportunity for him this year.”

Indeed, Stubbs believes there are lessons in facing adversity on the mound, especially because Painter dominated throughout high school and the lower minors.

“To see Paint be able to take the hits on the chin in different starts only sets my expectations higher for when he does get to the big leagues,” Stubbs said. “These moments are only going to benefit him come the future when he does end up going through any sort of rough patch. He’s handled it as much of a pro as I’ve seen out of anybody, and it’s great to see.

Dombrowski’s view of Painter hasn’t changed. He still hangs up on any general manager who asks about Painter in trade talks. He looks at Painter and sees a tall, physical, hard-throwing righty from his past. He sees Justin Verlander 2.0.

“I think he’s still going to be a premium major-league starting pitcher,” Dombrowski said.

In that case, why not call up Painter in September?

After months of speculation about when Painter might finally make his debut, the Phillies could remove the question by giving him a spot start in a six-man rotation.

Is there a benefit to checking that box before next season?

“I can’t even answer that,“ Dombrowski said. ”It might be. But there’s plenty of guys that start the season without having been on a roster before and do very well. Could it help him? It might. But I don’t know that it’s a driving force to have to do that.

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“And also, too, for us, we’re trying to win, so we’re going to do whatever we can to try to win a division and have the best record we possibly can.”

Painter could help with that, too. It has been a long season. Amid a two-week stretch in September without a breather, Sánchez, Suárez, and Luzardo may all benefit from an extra day of rest.

The Phillies could lessen the pressure on Painter by bringing him up, say, next weekend in Miami against the noncontending Marlins. (Painter grew up in South Florida, just up the road from Marlins Park, so he might feel quite literally at home.)

And whereas the Mets are counting on prospects Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong to pitch them into the playoffs because veterans Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, and Clay Holmes are either ineffective or tiring, the Phillies would be asking Painter to step in only for a start or two. When they revert to a five-man rotation, they can option Painter to triple A and call up Max Lazar as an extra arm in the bullpen.

“I do think it’s always a great thing for a player to get a taste of the next level and get a little bit of exposure to it, so I wouldn’t look at it as a negative,” Murton said. “But I don’t think Dave and [general manager] Preston [Mattingly] are making decisions based upon that. It’s, ‘What players are going to help us win the games and get to the playoffs?’”

Maybe Painter is one of them.

“I think it would be good for him,” Stubbs said. “But mentally he’s a pro and he’s mature. If it doesn’t happen, I know he’s just going to go through September working to make sure that he’s at his best.”