Athletics jump on Andrew Painter early as Phillies drop series finale with 12-1 loss
Painter struggled with command through 3⅔ innings and allowed seven hits, including three home runs that all came on fastballs.
After the third inning on Thursday, Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly went to Andrew Painter and gave him an out.
Painter’s fastball command had been off in his start against the Athletics, and he had already given up seven runs. His ERA shot up to 6.89. Mattingly offered to take him out of the game right there.
But the rookie right-hander declined. Even if he wasn’t his sharpest and the game was already in blowout territory, he wanted to save the bullpen as much as he could. And most of all, he didn’t want to shy away from adversity.
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“I think you have to learn how to deal with that stuff,” Painter said. “Obviously, in the hole. Stuff wasn’t going my way. But I think, just being competitive, you want to go out there and just compete until you can’t anymore.”
If there was a positive to be taken from the Phillies’ 12-1 loss to the A’s, Mattingly thought it was Painter’s response in that moment.
“It could have been a spot where he took his ball and went home, but he didn’t,” Mattingly said. “He wanted to go back out. I think that’s the connection you have with your club, with knowing that you don’t want to run through your whole bullpen tonight, and then it affects tomorrow’s game.”
It was a struggle from the start for Painter. He allowed the first four batters of the game to score — walk, home run, walk, home run — and threw 31 pitches before recording an out in the first inning.
Tanner Banks was warming up before the first was over, though Painter managed to complete 3⅔ innings. After his conversation with Mattingly, he went back out for the fourth and struck out Jeff McNeil and induced a groundout from Nick Kurtz. A single from Shea Langeliers ended his night, and Banks took over.
Painter allowed eight runs on seven hits, including three home runs that all came on fastballs. He fell behind in the count often, throwing first-pitch strikes only 55% of the time. On the occasions when he did get ahead, he struggled to put hitters away.
“As much as anything tonight, it was really more command than anything else,” Mattingly said.
This season, opposing hitters are averaging .348 against Painter’s fastballs. He said his command overall through his first seven games has been hit-or-miss. In his previous start against the Marlins, Painter thought he was missing glove-side. On Thursday, he was missing arm-side.
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But he thinks the shape of the pitch overall has been improved, even if the numbers don’t show it.
“Made a couple tweaks, and it’s definitely been flying better,” Painter said. “The results haven’t been there. I think it’s part of the process there, in this setup.”
Kyle Schwarber gave the home crowd something to cheer about in the fourth inning with his 12th home run of the year, a solo shot to right. But that accounted for one of just four hits the Phillies mustered against A’s righty J.T. Ginn, who stifled them for eight innings.
Ginn, who racked up eight strikeouts — five on his sinker — posted the longest outing of his career.
“Threw strikes,” Mattingly said. “You get ahead in a game like that, you throw strikes. And he’s changing speeds. He’s a movement guy.”
The A’s continued to run up the score on the bullpen, tacking on two more runs on Banks. After Lawrence Butler drew a walk in the fifth, Justin Crawford lost sight of a fly ball in center and it landed well behind him, allowing Zack Gelof to sail into third for an RBI triple. Gelof scored on a single from Kurtz.
Gelof then hit a two-run homer against Chase Shugart in the seventh, the A’s fourth of the night.
With the Phillies down by nine runs, Bryce Harper was lifted from the game in the sixth inning for Felix Reyes. Trea Turner was substituted out in the eighth.
Garrett Stubbs pitched the ninth. The Phillies strung together a pair of two-out singles against reliever Brooks Kriske in the bottom of the inning, but Brandon Marsh grounded out to end it.
When he returns to the ballpark on Friday, Painter plans to look back at film of his delivery to try and find out where the misses might be coming from.
According to Mattingly, this is all part of the process.
“Still a young guy,” he said. “First time he’s kind of really gotten punched, early, in the face, as far as I’ve seen this year, where the game got out of hand early. That’s a tough spot. But I think he’s a mature kid. He’s going to keep working, and he’ll be better.”
Hunter Pence's 368-day stint with the Phillies was a study in extremes. Acquired at the trade deadline in 2011 as the missing right-handed bat for a World Series contender, he got dealt a year later by an underachieving team. And with the Phillies in full-on crisis mode this week, Pence sits down with "Phillies Extra," the Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss how quickly a team's fortunes can change. Watch here.
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