Phillies will bring back Andrew Painter to pitch tonight in Baltimore

The Phillies are recalling Andrew Painter from Triple-A to pitch Friday in Baltimore, per Matt Gelb. Great news for a team has no fifth starter, right?

The Phillies fifth spot is 5-21 with an ERA that belongs in a horror museum. The deadline is here and if Andrew Painter is genuinely fixed, it’s the biggest addition the Phillies could make without giving up a single prospect. If he’s not, it’s the same nightmare in a different uniform.

That’s the stakes, and there’s no sugarcoating it.

Andrew Painter got shipped out in mid-June after posting a 7.06 ERA over 65 innings, which was flat-out unacceptable for a guy who spent years as the untouchable jewel of this farm system.

Since the demotion he’s pitched well in four of five outings at Lehigh Valley, and his last two starts were legit: three runs, a 14-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, 11 innings. That’s the version everyone was promised.

Now Andrew Painter has to do it against big-league hitters when it actually counts, which is everything but a sure thing.

The Whole Organization Dropped Everything to “Fix” Andrew Painter

What the Phillies organization uncovered was laundry list of problems. Andrew Painter wasn’t moving on the mound like he did before Tommy John, drifting toward the first-base side in his delivery. The fastball was a mess across the board, the changeup wasn’t consistent and Painter was getting torched by lefties.

That said, the delivery “overhaul” is something to watch

The velocity is already back on the rise. It was 96.5 in the majors with exactly one pitch above 99. At Triple-A it’s up to 97.2 and he’s touched 99 six times but the fix that matters most is the delivery.

In the big leagues, Andrew Painter’s motion was a clunky, multi-step mess that wasn’t repeatable, which destroyed his command. So they rebuilt it to preload his back leg and keep everything compact and explosive.

We’ll see how that works out tonight in Baltimore.

Don’t Get Carried Away, but the Timing Couldn’t Be Better

To his credit, Andrew Painter isn’t overselling it, and neither will I. This is not a cure-all. His heater got hammered up here, and if the location and movement don’t travel, we’re right back where we started.

Nobody should be printing October rotation graphics just yet.

Again, the reality of the situation is that the Phillies are 5-21 out of the fifth spot. That’s not a slump, that’s a season-long anchor dragging them under.

If Andrew Painter is right, it fixes the single biggest hole on the pitching staff and it does it for free, which means Dombrowski can aim his thin trade capital at the bullpen and the right-handed bat instead of trying to patch four leaks with two prospects. An internal fix at the fifth spot is worth as much as any deadline deal, and it costs nothing.

Phillies Trade Deadline: Potential Targets, Expectations, and the Hunt for Red October

So this is a big one for Andrew Painter and it’s probably bigger that he wants it to be. The Phillies poured the whole organization into getting you back on track, the deadline is staring everyone down, and Friday in Baltimore we find out if it took. No excuses, no easing back in. This team needs you to be the guy they drafted, and it needs it now.

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