Andrew Painter has best start of his career as Phillies cruise past the Cardinals: ‘The ceiling is so high for him’
Painter finished seven innings for the first time in his career and struck out eight for the Phillies' eighth straight win.
A few short weeks ago, the Phillies struck out looking for a back end starting pitcher at the trade deadline.
Three days prior, out of options for the fifth slot in their rotation, the team recalled top prospect Andrew Painter, who’d struggled through his first go-round in the majors.
On Saturday against the Cardinals, Painter showed exactly why the Phillies and everyone else were so high on him in the first place, striking out eight in a one-run, seven-inning performance in the Phillies’ 12-3 win, the best start of his major league career.
“The whole outing today, he looked like — he was a dog on the mound,” J.T. Realmuto said. “He wanted to get guys out. He wanted to attack the strike zone. He looked really confident out there.”
Painter earned a big standing ovation from the Citizens Bank Park crowd after throwing the last of his 102 pitches.
“The guy we saw today, the ceiling is so high for him,” Realmuto said. “If he has that demeanor and that much confidence on the mound, he can be whatever he wants in this game.”
Painter gave up just one run in the sixth inning, an RBI single from Alec Burleson.
Since his 2024 Tommy John surgery, Painter has been trying to rebuild his fastball, which was identified as his best weapon as a prospect. He threw 32% of his fastballs for either called strikes or whiffs on Saturday.
“It doesn’t look as hittable,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “ … I think one of the things they talked about is him working sideways when he was here. I don’t know. I look at it from a hitter standpoint, guys that are going sideways, they’re dragging the barrel. Pitchers, when they’re going sideways, they’re dragging the arm, and they’re also showing the ball early.”
The Phillies worked with him on getting down the mound, and also on “letting go” and being more aggressive.
After a blow-up first inning in his last start in Minnesota, Painter said he focused on using that first inning against St. Louis to attack and win the at-bats, instead of “falling into the trap” of using it to “feel stuff out.”
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He started Saturday’s game with a 1-2-3 inning, including two strikeouts. Painter didn’t walk a single batter and generated 20 whiffs total. He also made heavy use of his new changeup, something he worked on in his stint in triple A. He got six whiffs and averaged 92 mph on the pitch.
Having that changeup in the mix, which he threw 28 times compared to 25 fastballs, could be helping his fastball tick back up where he and the Phillies want it.
“It tends to widen out the fastball grip, probably a bit less forearm fatigue, but I think it’s harder, and it moves more too,” Painter said. “Being able to play those two pitches off of each other helps a lot.”
Even deep into the seventh inning, Painter threw a 99.6 mph fastball on his 100th pitch.
“There’s a lot of mechanical things that lead to a little bit more gas in the tank later in the games,” Painter said. “ … I know that’s probably my last at-bat. I didn’t want to walk off that mound with anything left in the tank.”
But the Phillies didn’t even need a gem from Painter to pick up the win, thanks to their thriving offense. The Phillies have long been a team that relied on the long ball, but by the time Bryce Harper hit the Phillies’ first home run of the game in the sixth inning, they’d already scored eight runs thanks to their small-ball game.
Alec Bohm, who hit the walk-off triple in Friday’s win, stayed hot in the first inning, knocking a single to left to score the Phillies’ first run after Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner walked and singled to get on base. Edmundo Sosa followed with a double to make it 3-0 in the first.
In the third, Bohm, Sosa, and Luis Arraez loaded the bases with singles, then Bryan De La Cruz knocked in two more runs with a single. J.T. Realmuto added a sacrifice fly, and Derek Hill doubled to put the Phillies up by 7-0. Schwarber added another sacrifice fly in the sixth, followed by Harper’s three-run homer. Schwarber homered in the eighth off position player Pedro Páges to cap off the Phillies 12-3 win.
Arraez was removed from the game with lower body cramps in the third inning. Hill was removed with neck stiffness in the sixth. Both will be evaluated.
Tony Gwynn Jr. is a former major league outfielder and son of late Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. Over the last two years, he got to know new Phillies second baseman Luis Arraez, whose contact skills at the plate often draw comparisons to Gwynn. Tony Jr. joined Phillies Extra to discuss his father, Arraez, and the bonds that connect them. Watch here.
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