MINNEAPOLIS — The Phillies will not let you forget they can fight their way back.
It is what they have done all season.
Battle-tested, bruised plenty and rarely out of a game for long, they turned another early mess into something completely different Sunday afternoon at Target Field, in their 7-5 victory over the Twins.
For five innings, though, the comeback was mostly theoretical.
The Phillies trailed by four after Andrew Painter’s first-inning grand slam, then by five after another homer later. They had chances against Twins right-hander Dean Kremer, who was acquired at the trade deadline, but had nothing to show for them.
Kyle Schwarber led off the game with a double. Nothing.
Edmundo Sosa had a one-out triple in the third. Nothing.
Justin Crawford doubled with two outs in the fifth. Nothing.
Then came the sixth, when the same patient approach, discussed during a late July hitters meeting, started to show up again.
Schwarber led off the inning with a walk. Bryson Stott worked a seven-pitch at-bat before singling. Bryce Harper walked. Luis Arraez pushed across the first run on a groundout.
That passed the baton to Alec Bohm.
Bohm has lived under deep criticism, but he has been red hot since the All-Star break. He looked the part all weekend against the Twins, including a career-high five hits Saturday.
This time, he got ahead 2-0 and looked ready for something up.
Kremer floated an 81.8 mph splitter up and in. Bohm got the barrel around, pulled it deep down the left-field line and kept it fair, hugging the foul pole for a three-run homer.
5-4.
A game that looked like it might be about Painter’s first-inning problem had become something else.
The Phillies sans Trea Turner, who will be fine, were back in it.
As it seems anytime they are in the Midwest, they are never really out of a ballgame.
And when things are going well, some good luck usually follows. After Harper singled and Arraez doubled in the seventh, Bohm came up again with one out and popped one into shallow right field.
No man’s land.
It fell for a base hit, allowing Harper to score from second. The Phillies had completed the comeback.
Tie game. They were not done.
Brandon Marsh was intentionally walked. J.T. Realmuto popped out. Then Bryan De La Cruz dug in, got into a 1-1 count and poked one down the first-base line to knock in two more.
7-5, Phillies.
De La Cruz has not had an everyday role, but he has continued to make the most of the chances he gets.
“I understand that’s my role,” De La Cruz said. “I just have to take advantage of the opportunities that I get.”
Whenever the Dominican-born outfielder has gotten consistent opportunities, he has delivered. He is now batting .333 with a .956 OPS.
And on a day that started with Painter’s frustration and a five-run hole, the Phillies did what they keep reminding everyone they can do.
They fought their way back.
PAINTER’S FIRST-INNING PROBLEM
That rally did not erase what happened in the first inning.
Painter chucked the rosin bag down in disgust, barked into his mitt and stomped through the dirt along the rubber. The Sunday afternoon Target Field crowd was roaring. Brooks Lee had just tagged him for a grand slam.
He had been bitten again by the bug that has dampened his rookie campaign, even with his recent success after his Triple-A demotion.
His opening-frame woes.
Painter now has the highest first-inning ERA of any starter in baseball this season at 9.56, minimum 15 starts. It is the highest by a Phillies pitcher with the same qualifier since Paul Byrd’s 14.11 ERA in 2000.
The first inning was rough. The response mattered.
“Really happy with the way he responded after that,” Don Mattingly said. “Him getting through five was huge today. Gives up the solo, but hung in there and kept going. That was huge.”
Painter knew what the early hole did to the game.
“The first was super tough,” Painter said. “It took a little bit to get in the rhythm there and obviously put the team in a really tough spot.”
It is common for first-year pitchers to run into issues. This one, specifically, has hurt other starters in the Phillies’ rotation in 2026.
Prior to Zack Wheeler returning from the injured list, Taijuan Walker was toeing the slab every five days. He allowed 11 earned runs in his four first innings, pitching to a 24.75 ERA.
Before the front office designated him for assignment, the Phillies used an opener in front of Walker. They tweaked his warm-up routine to simulate a first inning in the bullpen.
Nothing worked, and they cut bait.
Do the Phillies need to tweak Painter’s pregame regimen?
That will be part of the conversation.
Painter did not offer an easy answer.
“It was almost like I was trying to find the zone to start the game,” Painter said. “I thought the stuff was really good, but the execution just wasn’t.”
QUESTIONABLE PITCH CALL
Painter actually had two outs in the first inning after spinning a double-play ball following a leadoff four-pitch walk. Josh Bell and Kody Clemens both singled on changeups, and then Painter walked Royce Lewis to bring up Lee.
The rookie got ahead of the Twins’ third baseman 1-2. J.T. Realmuto set up middle-in, calling for a sweeper. Painter hung it. Lee crushed it down the right-field line, but hooked it foul.
A near grand slam.
On the next pitch, Realmuto called for a slider in the same location. Painter hung it again over the middle of the plate.
Lee did not hook that one foul.
4-0, Twins. More of the same from Painter, which explained his frustration.
It made sense to go after Lee with breaking pitches. He entered at .192 against that pitch group. But with the spot, the count and the pitch immediately before, going back to a similar lane was a head-scratcher.
Painter took the execution side of it.
“It’s got to be a ball down when we’re trying to get chase there,” Painter said. “I left it up.”
BRIGHT SIDE FOR PAINTER — AND WHY THE PHILLIES STAYED IN IT
Still, there were pieces to pull from Painter’s outing, outside of the solo homer he allowed later.
The most important was his fastball.
Painter has made clear that he wants to get the pitch back to where it was before Tommy John surgery. He wants the inverted break, otherwise known as vertical ride, up to 18 inches, a foot and a half, which can generate swing-and-miss when located consistently in the zone.
On Sunday, he said his four-seam fastball was the “best it’s been since before the Tommy John (surgery).”
It averaged more than 18 inches of vertical break, after mostly sitting around 16 inches this season and closer to 14 inches in recent starts.
Painter certainly has the velocity, but he has struggled to get the fastball by hitters. Sunday was different.
His season swing-and-miss rate entering the start with the four-seamer was 12 percent. Against the Twins, it was 27 percent on the 15 swings he got against it.
“I’ll obviously take life on my fastball,” Painter said. “The difference the last few starts has been 14, so there is a little bit of difference there where I’m trying to command that pitch.”
That extra carry helped him, but it also gave him something to manage.
“The more consistent that pitch can be outing to outing, the easier it’s going to be to command it,” Painter said. “It’s hard when you’re throwing the flat one compared to the one that’s taking off. It’s a little hard to make that adjustment in real time, but you kind of have no other choice.”
Progress, even on a day that started poorly.
Painter threw first-pitch fastball strikes just 44 percent of the time Sunday, which still left him pitching from behind too often. But the delivery taking that kind of step is not a small thing.
The first inning remains a real problem. But once he has gotten through it since coming back from Lehigh Valley, he has mostly looked like a different pitcher.
In the four starts since his return, Painter has posted a 1.69 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and .130 batting average against outside of the first inning.
If he did not settle down across five innings, the Phillies would have taxed their bullpen even more heading into a homestand without an off day. They also would not have stayed within striking distance long enough for the offense to turn the game.
Painter did not spiral. That is growth.
“For me, it is,” Mattingly said. “When you’re down four, it kind of puts you in a bind. He becomes the long guy there where he’s got to keep us in the game and give us chances to score.”
That begs the question of what is going wrong when he first takes the ball.
Is he fully warmed up? Is he struggling against the top of lineups the first time through? Does the pregame routine need to change?
Those are the questions the Phillies will have to answer.
If they reach the postseason, it is not hard to imagine some variation of the opener or piggyback plan they used last year with Aaron Nola and Ranger Suárez in Game 3 of the NLDS. This time, it could involve Nola and Painter in a five- or seven-game series.
But Sunday did not end with Painter’s first inning.
That mattered more than anything.
GETTING THE BALL TO DURAN
The Phillies entered Sunday having played 27 games since the All-Star break.
Their star closer, Jhoan Duran, had only two save opportunities in that span. For weeks, the issue has not been whether Duran can handle the ninth. It has been getting him there with a lead.
On Sunday, in his return to Target Field, the former Twin finally got that chance.
Mattingly mentioned Saturday that the Phillies have talked with Duran about the possibility of throwing multiple innings if needed. That could matter in October. For now, the cleanest version of this bullpen still looks like a bridge to him in the ninth.
The Phillies built one Sunday.
Orion Kerkering, who has been trying to work through recent struggles, handled the seventh with a scoreless inning. Jonathan Bowlan, who has started to look like a firmer setup option, followed with a scoreless eighth.
Then Duran wiggled in and out of trouble in the ninth, notching his 26th save.
The inning was not clean, but it held.
“The walk, you don’t love,” Mattingly said. “Obviously, you don’t like any of your guys walking guys late in the game. But him hanging in there was huge.”
That is the path the Phillies have been trying to create.
The seventh inning can still be matchup-based, with Kerkering, Brooks Raley and José Alvarado all factoring into different pockets. But if Bowlan continues to settle into the eighth and Duran is waiting behind him, the Phillies have a cleaner late-game picture than they did earlier in this road trip.
Sunday started with a five-run hole.
It ended with Bohm powering a rally, Painter giving them enough to stay close and Duran closing out a win — plus a sweep — in the ballpark he used to call home.