Falter, McGarry get first audition for Phils' No. 5 spot

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- One day after Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter made an impressive opening argument in his bid for the final rotation spot, two other candidates -- Bailey Falter and Griff McGarry -- got their first audition on Thursday afternoon against the Red Sox at JetBlue Park.

Falter worked around a pair of one-out singles in the first inning before allowing a solo homer to Christian Arroyo in the second. The left-hander notched a pair of strikeouts while allowing one run on three hits and a walk over 1 1/3 innings in the Phillies' 15-3 loss.

"I feel like I've been fighting for this spot for like the past three years, so you know, I don't take anything for granted in Spring Training," Falter said. "We're here to get our work in, we're here to get better, but also in the back of your head, it's like, 'Hey, you're fighting for a spot, so you've got to figure it out.'"

But for Falter, the battle this spring is a bit different than past years. After all, there's an actual vacancy in Philadelphia's rotation that hasn't existed entering recent camps. That puts him squarely in the conversation to crack the Opening Day staff, but he has competition in Painter, Cristopher Sánchez and McGarry, among others.

Speaking of McGarry, the righty flashed his elite strikeout potential when he blew a fastball past Rafael Devers for strike three in the third inning -- but that would be the only out recorded by Philadelphia's No. 3 prospect. He then conceded a base hit to Justin Turner and walked consecutive batters before serving up a grand slam to Arroyo.

In all, McGarry allowed five earned runs on two hits and three walks in one-third of an inning.

"It's not how you want to start Spring Training," McGarry said. "Obviously, coming out of that, you're going to want to dwell on it, but I know I have to flush it and prepare for the next outing. I think there's a lot to learn from. Tough one, but you've got to move on from that."

McGarry chalked up his lack of command to rushing through his delivery a bit, though he did have some control issues in the Minors last season when he walked 53 batters in 87 1/3 innings (5.5 walks per nine) across three levels.

Still, manager Rob Thomson has seen the 23-year-old fill up the strike zone plenty over the first few weeks of camp.

"This is what I told him on the bench, I said, 'What I want you to do when you go home tonight is I don't want you to think about this game. I want you to think about all the strikes you've thrown in your live BPs,'" Thomson said. "Because he's really been pounding the zone."

The reason McGarry even finds himself in the mix is he balanced out all of those walks by racking up 130 strikeouts in those 87 1/3 innings -- good for an average of 13.4 per nine. To put that in perspective, Carlos Rodón led the Majors with 12.0 strikeouts per nine last season.

"It's going to come -- I've seen it," Thomson said. "I've been standing right behind him and he's throwing strikes with all his pitches. So he can do it, it's just a matter of slowing everything down. And next time out, I'm sure he'll be better."

The battle for the final spot won't be decided by any one outing -- no matter how good or how bad. And with Opening Day still four weeks away, there figures to be plenty of ups and downs with each of the potential candidates.

"I know we're missing that fifth starter right now," Falter said. "We're not really focused on that stuff. We're just here to do a job and whatever happens, happens. It's going to be a good friendly competition this year."

The Phillies will continue to stretch out both Falter and Painter, among others, to have them ready to handle a potential starting job. It's also worth noting that the Phillies play 28 games in 30 days in April, including 16 straight from April 8-23.

So is it possible the Phils deploy a six-man rotation out of the gate?

"That'd be a stretch, because we do have some off-days in there," Thomson said. "There is a part of April where we do have a real long stretch, which it could happen -- we'll just see how everyone is health-wise and how they recover and what the workloads are."