Phillies Andrew Painter showed guts in blowout loss to Athletics

The Philadelphia Phillies four-game winning streak came to a close Thursday night after the Athletics thwarted the sweep, winning by a score of 12-1. The Phillies' bats went cold after scoring 23 runs during their winning streak -- the offense went 6-for-31 at the dish with nine strikeouts.

To go with a poor offensive performance, the Phillies received an even worse performance from starting pitcher, right-hander Andrew Painter. Painter didn't have his stuff from pitch one, allowing eight earned runs on seven hits, walking three, and giving up three two-run home runs in 3.2 innings. 

Thursday night's start was the worst performance of Painter's young career so far, but he showed some guts to eat innings, as it was his call to try to pitch a fourth inning. 

Andrew Painter showed guts to try to help save the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen

According to Phillies beat writer Jeff Kerr for 97.3 ESPN, interim manager Don Mattingly gave Painter the option to end his night after throwing three innings, but Painter opted to come out and try to pitch the fourth inning. 

"You have to learn how to deal with that stuff," Painter told Kerr. "Stuff wasn't going my way, but as a competitor you wanna go out there and just compete until you can't anymore."

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Painter added that he'll need to focus on some "delivery stuff" when working with Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham, so he throws less "predictable pitches."

“I think we'll go, and we'll look back on tomorrow on probably about some delivery stuff, and where the misses are coming from, specifically, but I think it's just you know being able to move the fastball around, I think I've thrown pretty predictable pitches, obviously seeing it well,” Painter said postgame.

In six starts (seven games), Painter is 1-4 with a 6.89 ERA and has allowed six home runs in 32.2 innings. Painter has time to work on bettering his fastball command and reshaping his delivery, as his next expected start should be against the Boston Red Sox on May 13. 

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