Phillies finally ship Andrew Painter back to Lehigh Valley and now have to figure out how to find a 5th starter

Andrew Painter has been optioned to Lehigh Valley after Wednesday’s loss to the Marlins and honestly it’s the right call for everyone involved even though it leaves the Phillies with a rotation hole that doesn’t have an obvious answer.

The 23-year-old’s ERA climbed to 7.06 after his latest rough outing and the Phillies can no longer justify running him out there every fifth day in the middle of a Wild Card race when the results have been this consistently bad for this long.

Goodbye Andrew Painter

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I’ve defended Painter all season because the kid is 23, he’s coming off Tommy John, the stuff flashes, and the splitter has developed into a legitimate pitch.

All of that is still true and none of it changes the fact that he’s been getting shelled at a rate that is actively costing this team games it can’t afford to lose.

We’re talking 15 runs in his last 13 innings before Wednesday’s disaster against the Marlins, which pushed the ERA past 7.00 against one of the worst lineups in baseball.

When you can’t get through the Marlins without getting tagged, it’s time to go work on things in a lower-pressure environment where the results don’t affect a playoff race.

Mattingly handled Painter with patience and creativity all season, using openers to shield him from the top of lineups and adjusting the game plans to put the kid in the best possible position to succeed.

At a certain point the adjustments stop working because the underlying problem, which is fastball command that disappears for entire innings at a time, hasn’t been fixed. Painter needs reps at Triple-A where he can figure out the four-seamer without the weight of a pennant race on his shoulders every fifth day.

The Rotation Behind the Big Three Is a Mess

Sanchez, Wheeler, and Luzardo are carrying this pitching staff at an elite level with a combined ERA that belongs in a Hall of Fame discussion, but everything behind them has been a disaster all season.

Andrew Painter’s 7.06 ERA is now matched by Nola’s 5.86, which means two out of every five starts have been coming from pitchers with ERAs approaching 6.00 or higher. The Phillies essentially have three starters and two problems, and one of those problems just got sent to Triple-A without a clear replacement lined up.

The Phillies will add a bullpen arm Thursday to fill Andrew Painter’s roster spot, with Seth Johnson as the likely candidate after posting a 1.33 ERA in 27 innings out of the Lehigh Valley bullpen. That handles the immediate roster need but doesn’t answer the bigger question of who takes Painter’s rotation spot when it comes back around early next week.

The Andrew Painter Internal Options Aren’t Inspiring

Alan Rangel and Braydon Tucker are the two names being floated as potential replacements in the rotation. Rangel is a 27-year-old righty with a 3.74 ERA in 65 innings at Triple-A this season who has worked as both a starter and reliever and has big league experience, which makes him the cleaner short-term option because you’re not asking a guy to experience the majors for the first time while also filling a rotation spot on a playoff contender. He’s scheduled to start Wednesday night for Lehigh Valley, so the timeline could work for a promotion next week.

Tucker is the more intriguing name with a 1.26 ERA at Double-A Reading that ranks among the lowest marks in all of affiliated ball, but his sinker-heavy, pitch-to-contact profile raises questions about whether that approach translates to the big leagues where the contact is a lot harder and the margin for error is a lot thinner. He’s also at Double-A, not Triple-A, which means promoting him directly to the majors would be an aggressive move that skips an entire level of development.

Neither option is going to walk into the fifth starter role and give the Phillies anything close to what Sanchez and Wheeler provide every fifth day, but at this point the bar is on the floor. If Rangel or Tucker can give the Phillies five or six innings of three-run ball every fifth day, that’s a massive upgrade over the 7.06 ERA that Painter was producing and it’s enough to keep the team competitive while the front office works the trade market for a more permanent solution.

Nola Is the Other Problem Nobody Wants to Discuss

Painter getting optioned is the headline but Nola’s 5.86 ERA is sitting right there in the background demanding attention that it hasn’t been getting because the focus has been on the fifth starter spot. Nola has failed to make it through five innings in six of his 14 starts this season and the curveball-heavy approach that showed promise during the San Diego series hasn’t held up consistently against better lineups.

The Phillies can’t option Nola. They can’t bench him. They can’t trade him without eating a massive chunk of his contract. They’re stuck with a former ace who is pitching like a back-end starter while hoping the curveball emphasis eventually clicks for more than two starts at a time. If Nola’s ERA is still hovering near 6.00 at the All-Star break, the conversation about his role in the rotation going forward is going to get very uncomfortable very fast.

The combination of Painter’s option and Nola’s struggles means the Phillies need to address the rotation at the trade deadline with urgency that goes beyond just replacing Painter’s spot. They need a legitimate starter who can slot in behind Sanchez, Wheeler, and Luzardo and give them four reliable arms instead of three. Whether that’s a rental from a selling team or a bigger move that brings in someone with term left on their contract, Dombrowski has to make this a priority because the current alternatives aren’t good enough to carry the rotation through a playoff push.

Painter Will Be Back but Not Until He’s Ready So Who Knows…

The option gives Andrew Painter room to work on the fastball command away from the pressure of the pennant race, which is exactly what a 23-year-old coming off Tommy John surgery needs right now instead of getting his teeth kicked in every fifth day in the majors while the team fights for a Wild Card spot.

The talent is real and everyone in the organization knows it because the splitter is becoming elite, the slider flashes plus, and the ceiling is a frontline starter who dominates for the next decade. The floor just kept showing up instead of the ceiling throughout the first half and the Phillies made the right decision to stop forcing it.

Painter will be back, whether it’s September when the rosters expand or next spring when he shows up with a full offseason of work behind him. The development path is still intact and the Phillies haven’t given up on him as a long-term piece of the rotation. What they’ve given up on is the idea that a 23-year-old with a 7.06 ERA is going to figure it out in real time during a season where every game matters.

The Phillies need a starter before the deadline because Rangel and Tucker can hold the fort temporarily but neither of them is the answer for a team trying to make a serious October run. Dombrowski knows it, the coaching staff knows it, and the rotation’s depth chart is screaming it from the rooftop.

Get on the phone, Dave. The fifth starter problem just became impossible to ignore.

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