{"id":670398,"date":"2026-03-21T01:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670398\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:27:14","slug":"andrew-painter-makes-phillies-opening-day-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670398\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Painter Makes Phillies’ Opening Day Rotation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phillies manager Rob Thomson informed reporters, including Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>, the rotation is set for the beginning of the season. Cristopher S\u00e1nchez<\/a><\/strong> will be the Opening Day starter, followed by Aaron Nola<\/a><\/strong>, Jes\u00fas Luzardo<\/a><\/strong>, Taijuan Walker<\/a><\/strong> and then Andrew Painter<\/a><\/strong>. Though Painter is on the 40-man roster, he will be making his major league debut when he takes the ball in that fifth game of the season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a surprising outcome. Zack Wheeler<\/a><\/strong> is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and will begin the season on the injured list, as has been expected throughout the offseason. Without Wheeler, it has long seemed like the aforementioned five guys would start the season in the rotation, and that has indeed come to pass.<\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s not a stunning development, it\u2019s an exciting debut nonetheless. Painter was once considered one of the best pitching prospects in the league, if not the very best. The 13th overall pick in the 2021 draft, Painter posted a 1.56 earned run average in the minors in 2022, climbing as high as Double-A. It seemed possible he could break camp with the Phils in 2023 even though he would have been a couple of weeks away from his 20th birthday at that time.<\/p>\n

Elbow issues popped up in March of that year and scuttled any chance of Painter making the club. He eventually underwent Tommy John surgery in July, which led to him missing the entire 2023 and 2024 seasons. He was back on the mound last year but wasn\u2019t dominant. He was able to make 22 Triple-A starts and throw 106 2\/3 innings but with a 5.40 ERA in those. His 23.4% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate were close to average.<\/p>\n

The prospect shine isn\u2019t quite as bright as it was a few years ago but Painter is still only 22, about to turn 23 next month, and has lots of future potential. Most top 100 prospect lists had him in the 25 to 50 range coming into this year, a drop from being a top ten guy a few years back but still a strong ranking. The Phils added him to the 40-man roster in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. In four starts this spring, he posted a 2.31 ERA, though with a somewhat lackluster 18.6% strikeout rate and a very low .188 batting average on balls in play.<\/p>\n

The rotation mix will surely be in flux as the season progresses. Wheeler isn\u2019t expected to be too far off. He is scheduled to pitch in a minor league game on Monday, per Lauber<\/a>, Wheeler\u2019s first official game action since his surgery. He will surely need a few weeks to build up but is entering the final stages of his recovery.<\/p>\n

Unless the Phillies want to deploy a six-man rotation, they will need to bump someone out when Wheeler is back. Painter has a full slate of options and could be sent back to Triple-A. It\u2019s also possible he out-pitches Walker, which could lead to Painter holding a rotation spot. Walker has been bumped to the bullpen in previous seasons, so it\u2019s entirely possible that could happen again.<\/p>\n

Since Painter is still a top 100 prospect and is cracking the Opening Day roster, that means he has a chance to benefit the Phillies via the Prospect Promotion Incentive. If he stays in the majors long enough to earn a full year of service time, then wins Rookie of the Year in 2026 or finishes top three in Cy Young voting in his pre-arbitration seasons, he would net the Phils a bonus draft pick in the future.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phillies manager Rob Thomson informed reporters, including Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the rotation is set for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":670399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[95086,62,3698,67,132,68,3683],"class_list":["post-670398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andrew-painter","tag-sports","tag-taijuan-walker","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-zack-wheeler"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116264569932342768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}