Andrew Painter, the future of the Philadelphia Phillies, undergoes tests

Oh no! Stop the music! Sweep up the confetti! The day after his reasonably impressive debut in Spring Training, 19-year-old Philadelphia Phillies phenom Andrew Painter reported … (gasp) … elbow tenderness.

While everyone was still drooling over his backfoot cutter to strike out Max Kepler on Wednesday, Painter had a little tenderness in his pitching arm. The Phillies did not report on the tests until Friday afternoon.

Phillies: Andrew Painter undergoes tests after elbow discomfort

This is not to say that Painter might not be just fine after his first outing in the actual MLB uniform. He was likely truly amped up for his first shot at convincing the big bosses that, like Dwight Gooden, he belongs on an MLB team at 19. He was very likely focused on throwing hard and executing pitches perfectly.

The concerning note here is that Painter was “sent for tests.”

If, in fact, something is actually “more wrong” than simple soreness, this would be very bad news indeed for the Phillies, since the team is surely expecting that one day Painter will replace Zack Wheeler at the top of the Phils’ rotation. No one is saying this out loud, of course, but the future must be planned for.

And after all, it is rare for even first-round draft picks to include three minor league teams on his Baseball Reference second line. And that happened after four games in the low minors when he was 18.

Andrew Painter pitched for the Clearwater Threshers, the Jersey Shore Blue Claws, and the Reading Fightin’ Phils last summer, posting a 2.54 ERA for Double-A Reading in five games.

Yes, that’s a small sample size, but his WHIP in those 28.1 innings was 0.953.

Andrew Painter has an MiLB strikeout-per-nine innings rate of 13.7, and his strikeout to walk ratio is 6.68 to 1.

It should be fairly obvious, then, that the results of Painter’s unspecified tests are a very, very big deal indeed.

The youngster also touched 99 mph on Wednesday.