BOSTON — Andrew Painter is scheduled to make his seventh major league start Wednesday night against the Red Sox, carrying a 6.89 ERA into a stretch that has already turned his rookie season into a test of damage control. The Phillies right-hander has allowed 44 hits in 32⅔ innings overall this season, and opponents are batting.373 with a.576 slugging percentage against his four-seamer.
The fastball is still coming in hard, averaging 96.1 mph, but the results have not matched the radar gun. Painter gave up eight runs in 3⅔ innings last week against the Athletics, a rough outing that he said came down to location more than pitch shape. “I’d say it’s more location right now,” he said. “But when the miss is 17 inches, it doesn’t matter what the shape is. It doesn’t matter how hard it is at that point. You’ve got to hit a spot there.”
That miss showed up most clearly last Thursday, when Painter missed up and away to Shea Langeliers in an 0-and-2 count and the pitch finished on the inner half of the plate at the belt. It was the sort of mistake that turns a pitcher’s best pitch into a hitter’s best swing, and it has left Painter trying to sort out whether the problem is execution, sequencing or both. Tuesday, he tried to reset at Fenway Park by chucking a football, playing catch with a baseball and running sprints.
Painter said the slider has remained his best way out of trouble. He called it a really good put-away pitch, said it has produced a 40% swing-and-miss rate and noted that nearly a quarter of his strikeouts have come on sliders. In two-strike counts, he said, he is spinning something about 74% of the time. “But I think it’s been getting predictable,” he said. “When I get two strikes, I want to say it’s like 74% of the time I’m spinning something.”
That is part of the learning curve for a young pitcher who still carries the profile of a frontline arm. Since 2021, there have been only 17 instances of a 23-or-younger rookie pitcher throwing at least 100 innings in a major league season, and only 13 of those 17 finished with a 4.50 ERA or lower. Painter is still early in that chase, and the larger picture around him has not changed: his stuff remains promising, and other teams ask about him in trade talks.
For now, though, the next snapshot matters more than the long view. Painter needs a cleaner night against a Red Sox lineup that will see a pitcher who still has the velocity and strikeout pitch to compete, but who has not yet found the command to let those traits play. “The last two starts, specifically, I’d say that’s kind of been the main thing,” he said. “When you’re missing spots by that much, it’s kind of hard.”
There is precedent for a talented young starter looking rough before settling in. Cole Hamels had a 5.98 ERA through his first 11 major league starts, a reminder that promising arms can take time to turn raw ability into results. Painter does not need that kind of history to know the job now is simpler: throw the ball where he wants it, or pay for the miss. The stuff is there. The strike zone has been the problem.
And Painter made clear he knows the hitters are not helping him by accident. “[Hitters] get paid to do what they do. They have the analytics as well,” he said. Wednesday night will show whether the next step in his adjustment starts with fewer mistakes, or with another lesson in how quickly major league lineups punish even a hard fastball and a sharp slider when the location slips.
