PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The slow pace of Andrew Painter\u2019s track to the major leagues continues, as Saturday night he went five innings for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, allowing two hits and two runs, semi-undone by four walks against five strikeouts. He threw 89 pitches.<\/p>\n
Nothing odd about that for a guy coming off Tommy John surgery except it was Painter\u2019s 12th game of a season that he hasn\u2019t officially begun.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s still considered a guy on rehab assignments, but still isn\u2019t scheduled to be promoted until after the All-Star break. In other words \u2026 he\u2019s a regular minor league guy, only no one calls it that. Of course, the 6-foot-7 top prospect is anything but your average minor league hopeful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen his BPs (batting practice sessions) and things like that,\u201d Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. \u201cI\u2019m just going off, a lot of times, what other people tell me, what they report to me. The poise is very good, the composure is very good. If he stays healthy and he\u2019s pitching well \u2026 then he deserves to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll just be a while yet.<\/p>\n
Painter lost a couple of early Class A rehab assignments in Clearwater, but in eight games with the IronPigs he\u2019s 3-2 with a 4.50 ERA. He\u2019s been up and down with his command, but either way he\u2019s going to continue on the slow track to the bigs. And when or whenever he gets here, the question looms of what becomes of a Phillies rotation that is still in flux, with Aaron Nola on a slow injury rehab road, too.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Mets\u2019 David Pearson was sailing along in the fourth inning Sunday night until Kyle Schwarber changed his direction.<\/p>\n
Schwarber took a Peterson slider and deposited it high off the batter\u2019s eye in center field at Citizens Bank Park in the fourth inning, giving the Phillies the first lead of the game.<\/p>\n
It would really take a turn from there for Peterson. He was able to get Alec Bohm on a liner to left, but then Nick Castellanos doubled, J.T. Realmuto walked, Otto Kemp plated Castellanos with a single and then seldom used Edmundo Sosa came up.<\/p>\n
Maybe he was chewing on some spinach or something, but Sosa drilled a shot to right-center that cleared seats and made the far reaches of the bullpen for a three-run home run. Schwarber wound up batting for a second time in that fourth inning, with two on and two out. He fouled out to end the inning but the Phils had run it up to a 5-0 lead there.<\/p>\n
What was most intriguing about the inning was Sosa\u2019s homer, not only for its distance (430 feet according to all-knowing MLB.com) but because it was somebody other than Schwarber getting one.<\/p>\n
Schwarber now has 24 home runs on the season, but after that, the injured Harper \u2013 who has missed 21 games this season \u2013 Trea Turner and Max Kepler are all tied for second on the team with only nine homers each. Before the game, Thomson professed the general lack of home runs could turn quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s coming,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not concerned about it yet. I think we\u2019ve done a pretty good job at creating runs when we have to. Stealing bases, I think we\u2019re fourth or fifth \u2026 We\u2019re moving runners, we\u2019ve had some hit-and-runs and bunting. We\u2019re doing things to create runs. But I truly believe the home runs are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
They better. Despite having one of the league leaders in Schwarber, the Phillies were only 16th out of 30 MLB teams with 83 home runs after Sosa\u2019s blast.<\/p>\n
By the way, Sosa had three hits in the game.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
On Harper, who still seems to be a ways away from even thinking of returning, Thomson admitted the progress on his wrist rehab is \u201c\u2026slow, but I kind of expected it to be slow. Wrist, hand, fingers, those things tend to take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomson added that Harper is more or less calling the shots on this, saying \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a day at some point where he just says, \u2018I\u2019m ready to go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
NOTES >> Phillies on their way to Houston now, where they\u2019ll mix up the usual rotation and throw Ranger Suarez in the series opener Tuesday, followed by Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sanchez. That was done to break up lefties Suarez and Sanchez. \u2026 Aaron Nola, who recently was dispatched to the 60-day injury list, played catch in a batting cage Sunday, which is considered progress. He\u2019ll stretch his throwing program later in the week if all goes well.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: June 22, 2025 at 9:09 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The slow pace of Andrew Painter\u2019s track to the major leagues continues, as Saturday night he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,185,4802],"class_list":{"0":"post-124054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114730091514203068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}