Painter dominates with all four of his pitches in latest sparkling AFL start

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- The Andrew Painter comeback tour continued on Wednesday afternoon. The fourth Arizona Fall League start for the No. 32 prospect in baseball delivered similar results to the Phillies phenom’s previous outing: three scoreless innings, three strikeouts, no walks and one step closer to being ready for a full and healthy 2025 season.

“I think three is the plan moving forward, just kind of getting my feet wet,” said Painter, who gave up two hits and now sports an ERA of 0.90 over his four AFL outings, his first real work since his 2023 elbow injury and eventual Tommy John surgery that cost him the last two seasons. “I feel like I’ve built off of every start. I’m looking forward to continuing to do that.”

The building block on Wednesday in Glendale's 8-7 victory over Surprise was using all four of his offerings for the first time this fall. He ran his four-seam fastball up to 99 mph and it averaged close to 97. His low-80s curve was effective, as was his harder, upper-80s slider. New on Thursday was his changeup, which he showed four different times, throwing the pitch at around 90-91 mph and killing spin with it (RPM in the 1,550-1,740 range).

“That’s something I’ve been working on,” Painter said. “The changeup has been the last to come and something we were looking forward to working on here. I think today’s lineup definitely helped with that. There were six lefties in the lineup. It opened up that outer half for me to throw and build that confidence throwing it.”

He got his strikeouts with three different pitches. The first one ended the first inning when he got Astros catcher Collin Price to swing over the top of an 83 mph curve he effectively buried in the dirt. The other two came in the second, getting Guardians infielder Milan Tolentino to swing through a 96.6 mph four-seamer to end an 11-pitch battle followed immediately by getting two swings-and-misses on consecutive 87-mph sliders to whiff Rangers infielder Cody Freeman.

If there’s anything to nitpick at from this most recent outing, it’s that Painter’s four-seamer did get barreled up a few times. Four balls were hit over 100 mph off his heater, though only one was a base hit. Everything is a stepping stone for the Phillies' No. 2 prospect right now and he knows being able to go to that offspeed pitch will help keep hitters off his fastball.

“I think that’s where that changeup comes into play,” Painter said. “I think I left a couple of those heaters middle and they were hunting it, obviously. As we continue to move on, that changeup’s going to be a big piece for me.”

The 21-year-old right-hander has gone 10 total innings for the Desert Dogs, allowing three runs on eight hits and just one walk while striking out 10. And while the feel for his cambio might be a work in progress, somehow his command has not been. One of the big things that made the 6-foot-7 righty such an impressive prospect pre-injury was his premium stuff combined with the plus ability to fill the zone with it. Despite having missed so much mound time, that’s come all the way back. Painter threw 25 of his 33 pitches for strikes and now has a 74.8 percent strike percentage (127 pitches, 95 strikes).

It’s a small sample size, for sure, but for comparison’s sake, take the best strike-thrower in Major League Baseball in 2024, George Kirby. He topped all qualified starters with a walk percentage of 3.0 percent, which translated to just 1.08 walks per nine. He threw a strike 68.4 percent of the time this season. Has Painter's control this quickly out of the gate been a surprise? Maybe a little, though it was an area of focus when he was ramping up before coming to Arizona.

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“During the live BPs that was kind of my big thing,” Painter said. “I got scattered a little bit with the heater and that was something I wanted to work on out here. I’m just glad everything has worked out so far and I look forward to keep on doing that.”