Andrew Painter was hoping to build on two strong outings that he had put together for Lehigh Valley after being optioned there back on June 18. Instead, he made it through just 2.2 innings before giving way to the bullpen with the IronPigs down 7-0.
The problems began quickly for Painter when leadoff hitter Cooper Ingle doubled and Angel Genao followed by drawing a walk. Painter got the next two hitters and seemed like he may have straightened himself out but then gave up a pair of singles on just four pitches. He gave up two more runs on three hits, a walk, and an errant pick-off throw to second base in the second. On just two pitches, Painter retired the first two hitters in the third and then gave up a walk, a triple and a home run to Ingle to end his night on the mound.
“The change-up and split have been good for me in the past, but I didn’t have any feel for the change-up and was kind of spraying that all over, so we sort of eliminated that from the arsenal,” said Painter of his Friday night outing. “I threw a couple of curveballs and flipped them in early, but never was really able to establish anything but the fastball. I threw a couple of sweepers and those were pretty good, but I never really got the hard slider going. The fastball was decent today when I got ahead of guys early and had that count leverage, but we could see they were sitting on that, so we kind of had to get away from it.”
It’s worth mentioning that the Clippers put together a lineup with six left-handed hitters and three switch-hitters. Getting left-handers out has been an issue for Painter throughout all of last season and into the 2026 campaign. In his time in the majors this season, Painter had a slash line of .325/.366/.538/.904 while right-handed hitters hit .299/.389/.505/.894 against him at the major league level.
Control of his fastball was again an issue for Painter who threw 70 pitches with just 38 of them being strikes. Fastball command was one of the reasons why Painter struggled in the majors this season.
One of the things that Painter did well in his first two starts back at Lehigh Valley was to contain left-handed hitters. Left-handers had hit just .143 (2-for-14) against him coming into Friday night’s start. The Clippers lefty laden lineup hit .533 (8-for-15) against Painter and drew four walks for an on-base percentage of .632 (12-for-19).
After being optioned out the Phillies had Painter take 10 days off before his first start with Lehigh Valley. They used that time to work with him on several issues, many of which were related to the mental part of the game and were designed to get him to be more aggressive against hitters, particularly when he had two strikes on them.
Prior to the game, IronPigs manager Tank Adamson had noted that the biggest change in what he had seen in Painter since his return was the ability to throw first pitch strikes and consistently work ahead of hitters. In Friday’s game Painter threw first pitch strikes to 13 of the 19 batters he faced, but could not stay ahead in the counts and wasn’t able to put hitters away when he had two strikes on them.
“Throwing strike one was the biggest thing for Andrew from start one to start two,” said Adamson. “He was ahead a lot and he kind of embraced early contact and he was super efficient and his pitch count was low. He just got ahead a lot; there was a lot of early soft contact and he got a lot of quick outs.”
Painter’s velocity was good and remained consistent throughout the outing. In general, velocity has not hindered him in his starts, it’s been all about location and command.
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