Three years\u2019 worth of anticipation will climax Tuesday night when Andrew Painter, perhaps the most hyped Phillies\u2019 pitching prospect ever, and definitely the most since Cole Hamels, makes his major-league debut at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey,\u201d Painter said with a smile Monday afternoon. \u201cI\u2019m super grateful for all the people who\u2019ve been a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thirty to 40 of those people will be in the stands when Painter throws his first pitch against the Washington Nationals. The group will include family, friends, former coaches and other supporters.<\/p>\n
Painter won\u2019t notice them, though. He\u2019s remarkably poised and focused for a young man who won\u2019t turn 23 until April 10. When he shows up to the ballpark Tuesday, he\u2019ll have the proverbial blinders on. Nothing will break his focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ll lean into my everyday process, my regular routine, and let everything take care of itself,\u201d the 6-foot-7 right-hander said.<\/p>\n
Painter was the Phillies\u2019 first-round draft pick (No. 13 overall) in 2021. He was on a fast track to the big leagues when he suffered an elbow injury in spring training 2023 that eventually required Tommy John surgery and a lengthy rehab process. The Phillies had hoped to have Painter reach their big-league rotation last summer, but control issues led to his spending the entire season at Triple A Lehigh Valley, where he pitched to a 5.65 ERA and allowed 10 hits and 3.9 walks per nine innings.<\/p>\n
This spring in Florida, Painter took a regular turn in the Phillies\u2019 rotation. He pitched 11 2\/3 innings, gave up just seven hits, walked two and struck out eight. He did what the Phillies\u2019 brass wanted him to do \u2013 he earned his spot in the big-league rotation.<\/p>\n
As disappointed as Painter was in not making it to Philadelphia last summer, he believes his time in Triple A was well spent, regardless of the not-so-pretty results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m grateful for all the failure,\u201d he said. \u201cLast year was a tough one but I learned a lot from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing I learned was (the importance of) fastball command and not falling behind in counts, which I did a lot. When you’re\u00a0getting into hitters\u2019 counts, they\u2019re in the driver\u2019s seat. You want to get ahead and force their hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Painter pitched 118 innings last season. The Phillies will be cognizant of his workload throughout this season, but there is no hard cap on his innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all depends on the gauges we use, arm angle, extension, velocity, all those things tell us a lot,\u201d manager Rob Thomson said. \u201cAs long as those things are in check, we won\u2019t worry too much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomson went on to say he\u2019d be thrilled to see Painter go six innings Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as he throws strikes, uses his stuff and keeps people off balance, he\u2019ll be fine,\u201d Thomson said.<\/p>\n
Painter is well liked and respected in the Phillies’ clubhouse for his work ethic and humility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just like the way he carries himself,\u201d Alec Bohm said. \u201cHe\u2019s never been one of those kids that acted like he\u2019s better than anyone, like, \u2018I\u2019m the big prospect, treat me better than others.\u2019 He\u2019s always just gone about his business, been a good teammate, worked hard and earned his way here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think game-wise, it\u2019ll be just business as usual. We come in the same way every day, trying to win a baseball game. But you definitely notice when you\u2019ve got a guy making his debut on the mound. You want to win \u2018em all, but, for sure, you want to get a kid his first win.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years\u2019 worth of anticipation will climax Tuesday night when Andrew Painter, perhaps the most hyped Phillies\u2019 pitching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,4,415,32373,414,71,4222],"class_list":{"0":"post-653455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-nationals","11":"tag-phillies-blog","12":"tag-washington","13":"tag-washington-nationals","14":"tag-washingtonnationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116320803819685179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653455","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=653455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}