If the Phillies are planning on bringing top prospect Andrew Painter to the majors, now might be the time. On Wednesday, Painter had his best outing of the season for Lehigh Valley as the IronPigs beat Worcester 5-3 in 10 innings. The outing gave Painter season highs in both innings (6.1) and pitches thrown (103).

The initial target date to bring Painter to the majors was just after the all-star break, but June and July were not particularly successful for Painter, whose ERA was at 2.65 after his first four starts in May. His monthly ERA for June shot up to 5.40 and his July mark stood at 5.91 coming into Wednesday night’s start. Against Norfolk on July 24, Painter pitched well as he gave Lehigh Valley six innings and allowed just two earned runs, but did have some command issues, walking three hitters.

Wednesday night, Painter allowed at least one hit in each of the first five innings and the two walks he issued both came in the third inning. That inning had started with a single to right by Tyler McDonough who was thrown out by Gabriel Rincones Jr. when he attempted to stretch the single into a double. It turned out to be a big play since the two walks came later in the inning and would have given the Red Sox a bases loaded and one out situation. Instead, they had runners on first and second with two outs and Painter got the final out of the inning when Vaughn Grissom flied out to right.

In the fifth, McDonough led off with a double and later scored on a single by Kristian Campbell for the only run allowed by Painter. The inning ended with Painter getting a fielder’s choice and he set down the Red Sox in order in the sixth. At that point, Painter was at 98 pitches but was allowed to come out to start the seventh and threw five more pitches to get Chadwick Tromp to line out to center before being lifted.

Lehigh Valley scored three runs in the top of the 10th with Guillo Zuniga getting the win. Nolan Hoffman allowed the ghost runner to score in the bottom of the 10th, but were unable to put any other runs on the board as Hoffman recorded his second save of the season.

Keaton Anthony was 3-for-5 for Lehigh Valley and Payton Henry hit two home runs in the 5-3 IronPigs win.