ALLENTOWN — Just like the Rolling Stones, Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter painted it black.
Dotting the black edges of the plate, the 6-foot-7, 215-pound righthander — with a delivery as smooth as silk — struck out five and allowed just one hit in three innings during his Triple-A debut with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs against the Worcester Red Sox Thursday night at Coca-Cola Park.
Painter, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow, rung up five of the first eight batters he faced, including WooSox left-fielder Roman Anthony, the top prospect in all of baseball, who went down on four pitches, flailing at a 12-to-6 curveball for strike three to lead off the game.
Painter left after 60 pitches, 34 of them strikes, and through one stretch retired seven in a row.
He mostly relied on his four-seam fastball, a devastating cutter/slider, and his curveball. His brutal curve, reminiscent of Barry Zito in his prime, was his go-to out pitch.
Painter, who was throwing to former Phillies backup catcher Garrett Stubbs, ran into trouble in the third inning, walking three to load the bases with two outs. (The first walk came on a very borderline ball-four call, also on the black.) But he never seemed rattled or out of control.
It was as if he knew he’d get out of it. And he did.
He elicited an infield pop out from Worcester catcher Blake Sabol, the cleanup hitter, on a lower-zone four-seamer to end the frame.
Meanwhile, Stubbs, always a stand-up guy, was asked about catching Painter before the game. He responded, “Who?”
“No, I’m excited,” Stubbs said. “I think everyone’s excited. He’s been out for a little over a year, everyone knows how good he is, how good he can be. I’m excited for him, mostly he’s had a lot to overcome his first couple of years in pro baseball. To get this point is tough. I haven’t had to go through (such a surgery), but I know a lot of guys who have. So to get to the point where he’s getting to pitch in a real game, especially at this level, is awesome.”
In front of a weeknight sellout crowd, Painter averaged 96.8 mph on his fastball and topped out at 98.3. By the third inning, he started to lose some command, particularly on his curveball.
In four starts at Single-A Clearwater this year, the 22-year-old Painter struck out 12 while allowing 10 hits, five runs and a walk.
The Phillies drafted Painter 13th overall in 2021. He’s the top prospect in their organization and considered top 15 overall.
In his only full season, he spent 2022 pitching across three minor-league levels, going from Low-A Clearwater to High-A Jersey Shore and ending in Double-A Reading. His stats that year were a 1.56 ERA over 103 2/3 innings, with 155 strikeouts against 25 walks at age 19.
Upon recovering from Tommy John surgery last year, he had a 2.30 ERA in a limited 15 2/3 innings in the Arizona Fall League.
“We could go quicker,” Phillies general manager Dave Dombrowski recently said of progressing Painter through the system. “I think all of us feel, from a health perspective, that he could go quicker than that. But we’re also trying to combine coming back with trying to preserve innings for later in the season. If you go too quickly, then you’re going to burn the innings that you would want to use later. That’s why we’re going slower.
“We hope that he’s capable of being added (to the Phillies’ roster) to help us. But we have a good pitching staff, too. So, he has to earn it. He has to go out and do it.”
Source: Berkshire mont