Phillies' Painter gets a grip on AFL competition with his new slider

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- In many ways, Glendale’s starter Thursday was the old Andrew Painter, the one who posted a zero in 11 of his 22 appearances and finished with a 1.56 ERA across three levels during a legendary 2022 run.

In other ways, it was a new Painter. Sure, he’s a hurler still building up following 2023 Tommy John surgery. That much we knew. But with every passing outing, the No. 32 overall prospect is showing off an adjusted arsenal that is already paying dividends in the Arizona Fall League.

Painter allowed only one hit while striking out three over three scoreless innings in Glendale’s 9-6 win over Salt River at Salt River Fields. It was the 6-foot-7 right-hander’s first zero-laden outing in a competitive environment since Sept. 9, 2022, at Double-A Reading, and his third fall start marked the longest outing of his stint in the desert -- topping the two frames he posted in his previous two starts. Twenty-six of his 32 pitches went for strikes.

The 22-year-old touched 99.2 mph and averaged 97.1 mph with his 19 heaters, up a tick from his 96.8 average in his previous Desert Dogs outing on June 18. Painter also spun six curveballs in the 80-82 mph range, giving him an option in the lower zone that complemented the rising fastball -- and he didn’t need his changeup with eight righty hitters in the Rafters lineup.

But there's also a relatively new pitch in Painter's repertoire that has piqued interest in Arizona -- a sharp upper-80s offering that needs some clarification on its classification.

“It's a slider,” Painter said. “It’s the same pitch, same grip, just a different thought process. One of them, the slower one, is for a strike most of the time. When I get to two strikes, it's the same grip, but I'm just thinking to go gloveside away to a righty and in on a lefty. I'm just thinking more heater with it. Same grip though.”

Painter started using a harder breaking ball during 2023 Spring Training that had many buzzing about him possibly making the Major League Opening Day roster at just 19. Scott Kingery was quoted in The Athletic at the time, saying he didn’t know Painter threw a cutter. As it turns out, that wasn’t truly the case.

Painter was working with two slider types -- one in the upper 80s that bit hard and another in the low 80s with more sweep. Following the top Phillies pitching prospect's rehab work, the sweeper has been left behind.

“That’s no longer in the arsenal,” he said.

The initial elbow issue that placed Painter on the injured list in the spring of 2023, the eventual TJ surgery that July and the lengthy return process all made developing a still relatively new pitch more difficult, heightening his anticipation to get that slider into true game action.

“It was honestly really good early on throughout mound work, and then kind of hit some hiccups along the way of questioning it,” Painter said. “I'd be overthinking grips. I just had to trust it and roll with it. I was on a backfield, a couple live BPs, so there wasn't really all the pressure in the world to get it right then. I try to build off everything and learn from that, go back and look at the video and see what I like.”

First, it came in the upper 80s, giving him a bridge offering between his high-90s fastball and low-90s breaking ball. Second, the movement profile -- typically around 6-10 inches horizontally with an induced vertical break in the 0-5 range -- seemed like a good fit.

“We're looking for hard and late,” Painter said. “Something that doesn't pop out of the hand as much, looks more like a heater and tunnels heater for 50 feet.”

Salt River had fits with Painter’s seven cutters, which ranged from 85.7 mph to 89.8, on Thursday. Four of the offerings landed for called strikes, with another landing as a swing-and-miss. Only one was put into play, and that was an easy 0-2 flyout by Garrett Martin (Yankees) that left the bat at just 81.7 mph in the third inning.

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Jordan Dissin worked behind the plate with his fellow Phillies prospect for the second time in Painter’s three AFL starts. Painter's elbow concerns and surgery meant the 2022 12th-rounder had yet to work with the righty in a game setting before heading to Glendale. But Dissin knew enough to have an idea of what to expect from one of the game’s best pitching prodigies -- more zeros like Thursday’s outing.

“That's Andrew Painter,” Dissin said. “That's who he is. That's nothing less than what I expect to happen every time that I catch him.”

Through three starts, Painter has allowed three earned runs over seven innings. He’s fanned seven and walked only one in that span, throwing 70 of 94 total pitches for strikes. He’s expanding his workload slightly with plans of hitting 20 innings before the Fall League is out, and an expanded arsenal should lead to more scoreless frames.

“If he can have the stuff he had today for six innings,” Dissin said, “I think a lot of people are going to be happy.”