Andrew Painter Disasterclass: Phillies drop series finale to Athletics 12-1

Andrew Painter was an absolute disaster on Thursday night. Seven runs over 3 2/3 innings in a 12-1 Phillies loss to the Athletics at Citizens Bank Park. The A’s hung a four-spot in the first inning, tacked on three more by the fourth, and the game was over before anyone in the building had finished their first beer.

Through seven outings this season, Painter has a 6.61 ERA. The top pitching prospect in baseball looks lost on the mound right now and I’m tired of pretending the growing pains are just part of the process.

I’ve been patient with Painter. I really have. He’s 22 years old, he’s a rookie, and the arm talent is undeniable. But getting shelled by the Oakland Athletics at home is a different kind of bad.

This isn’t the Braves or the Dodgers teeing off on a young pitcher. This is Oakland. The Athletics. A team that is actively trying to spend as little money as possible on Major League talent. They put up seven runs on Painter in less than four innings like he was throwing batting practice with the cage open.

The Fastball Has Become Batting Practice

I need everyone to understand how bad this has gotten because the numbers are alarming. Painter’s fastball averages 96.2 mph, which puts him in the top 25 percent in baseball by velocity. The arm is elite. The location has been atrocious.

In his last start in Miami, Painter did not generate a single swing-and-miss on his fastball. Not one. Zero whiffs across the entire outing. Hitters put 12 fastballs in play and four of them were hard-hit.

Thursday was the same movie with a worse ending. Three swings-and-misses on 15 swings against the heater. The A’s put eight fastballs in play, five were hard-hit, and they averaged 99 mph in exit velocity. They were teeing off on a 96 mph fastball like they knew it was coming because at this point, they did know it was coming.

Shea Langeliers sat on a 0-2 fastball that leaked inside and sent it 108.4 mph into the left-field seats. The man was on paternity leave, didn’t arrive in Philadelphia until 8:30 in the morning, and still jumped on Painter’s best pitch like he’d been sitting in the batting cage waiting for it all day.

Brent Rooker worked an 0-2 count full, got virtually the same fastball in the same location, and yanked it out of the yard. Jacob Wilson hit another fastball out in the third. Three home runs on the heater in one game from a lineup that ranks nowhere near the top of baseball in offensive production.

When the Oakland A’s are averaging 99 mph exit velocity on your fastball, the pitch is broken. There’s no other way to say it. Velocity means nothing if every hitter in the lineup knows where it’s going and when it’s coming.

The Walks Are Feeding the Problem

Painter walked the leadoff hitter in the first inning on five pitches. Walked Soderstrom later in the first to set up Rooker. Walked Soderstrom again to start the third, which led to another run.

Every single rally started with a free pass. Leadoff walks always come back to score and they scored every time against Painter on Thursday because he couldn’t put guys away when he had the chance.

The walks are creating a cycle that Painter can’t break out of. He walks a guy, runners get on base, the pitch count climbs, he can’t afford to throw secondary stuff because he doesn’t trust his command in leverage situations, so he goes back to the fastball. Hitters know this.

They’re sitting heater, timing it up, and punishing every mistake. Until Painter can throw first-pitch strikes consistently, limit the free passes, and trust his secondary stuff with runners on, the at-bats are going to keep snowballing into disaster innings.

J.T. Ginn Shut the Phillies Down

On the other side, A’s right-hander J.T. Ginn threw eight innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts. He wasn’t overpowering. He didn’t need to be. The Phillies averaged 93 mph exit velocity on 14 balls in play against him, which means they were hitting the ball hard and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

Ginn has a 1.50 ERA in five road starts this season and a 7.62 ERA in four home starts. The Phillies were the latest victims of road Ginn and there was nothing they could do about it because their own starter spotted the A’s seven runs before the fourth inning.

Schwarber was the only Phillie who did anything at the plate. He went 2-for-4 with a solo homer, a walk, and the team’s only RBI.

The rest of the lineup was brutal. Turner went 0-for-3. Stott 0-for-3. Sosa 0-for-3. Marchan 0-for-3. Harper went 0-for-1 with a walk. Reyes, Garcia, Marsh, and Crawford each managed a single hit apiece. Six total hits from the entire lineup in a game where the pitching needed every ounce of run support it could get. Instead they got one run from a Schwarber solo shot and nothing else.

I’m Not Panicking but I Am Running Out of Patience with Painter

The one thing I’ll give Painter credit for is that Mattingly offered to pull him after three innings and Painter wanted to go back out. The kid isn’t afraid. He’s not running from the moment. He’s just a young pitcher whose primary pitch has stopped fooling anyone and whose command has been too inconsistent to survive at this level right now.

Painter needs to figure out the fastball immediately. Either start locating it better so hitters can’t sit on it or start trusting the secondary stuff earlier in counts to keep the heater unpredictable. He knows it. Mattingly knows it. Caleb Cotham knows it. The entire pitching staff knows it. Two consecutive starts where Major League hitters are averaging 99 mph on the fastball is not something you can just ride out and hope corrects itself.

The Phillies are 16-21. The winning streak under Mattingly was going to hit a bump eventually and a Painter blowout is a predictable place for it to happen. The rotation overall is still significantly better than it was a month ago when the starters had a 5.80 ERA and the team was 9-19. One bad Painter start doesn’t erase the progress from Wheeler, Sanchez, Luzardo, and Nola over the last two weeks.

Painter has to be better. He has to. This rotation needs five reliable starters to climb back into the NL East race and right now Painter is the one dragging the group down. A 6.61 ERA through seven outings isn’t a rough patch anymore. It’s a pattern that needs to be addressed before it gets any worse.

Figure it out, kid. This team doesn’t have time to wait.

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