More than four hours before Lance Lynn tossed the slightly-rain delayed first pitch on Tuesday night, Lynn’s longtime teammate took a stroll down memory lane. Pham strolled the outfield grass alongside coach and Cardinals Hall of Famer Willie McGee, re-familiarizing himself with the nooks and crannies of Busch Stadium.
Pham, drafted by the Cardinals out of high school in 2006, spent the foundation-forming years of his career in the Cardinals organization. The Las Vegas native debuted with the club in 2014. He made his first postseason appearance in 2015. However, he hadn’t worn the bird on the bat across his chest since the club traded him to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018.
The Cardinals brought Pham back via a three-team trade involving the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday. Pham, 36, made the drive from Chicago to ºüÀêÊÓƵ on Monday, but wasn’t added to the active roster until Tuesday. In one of those full-circle baseball coincidences, a trade that sent Dylan Carlson to the Rays opened room on the active roster for Pham.
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Then in the fifth inning, a little piece of baseball magic unfolded. Pham came off the bench as a pinch hitter and mashed a grand slam that broke the game open and sent the ballpark into a frenzy as the Cardinals secured an 8-1 win over the Texas Rangers in the second game of a three-game set in front of an announced crowd of 32,395 at Busch Stadium.
While Pham experienced many memorable moments in the ballpark during his first stint as a Cardinal, this one struck a unique chord largely because of the reaction of those in attendance. The crowd’s hum grew more focused, intense and loud as Pham approached the plate for the first time. By the time he’d been announced over the public address system, it had turned into a steady roar.
“It was different because of the ovation,†Pham said. “That was probably the best moment — definitely my best moment here, one of the top moments of my career.â€
In that moment, Pham delivered.
Acquired to give the Cardinals a right-handed hitting outfielder capable of doing damage, particularly against left-handed pitchers, Pham stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and Rangers left-handed reliever Cody Bradford on the mound.
The Cardinals (55-52) had already scored one run in the inning on Alec Burleson’s RBI single. Then they’d loaded the bases on a single by Willson Contreras and a two-out walk by Paul Goldschmidt. Left-handed hitting veteran slugger Matt Carpenter, the designated hitter, was due up after Goldschmidt.
Instead, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol earmarked that as the moment for Pham’s first at-bat. Marmol quipped in his postgame comments that he’d started mapping out the situation to use Pham as a pinch hitter around 4 o’clock that afternoon.
Pham fell behind in the count 1-2 after he swung and missed at a changeup just off the outside corner of the plate, the second consecutive changeup from Bradford. Then Pham took a fastball below the strike zone that made the count 2-2. Bradford went back to the changeup away, but it was more outer half than off the corner. The pitch was also closer to the top third of the strike zone than the bottom third.
“You don’t go up to the plate like, ‘Oh man, I hope I do this,’†Pham said. “You have to be confident. Hitting is hard. You see what these guys are throwing now. You see a hundred every day with nasty break, nasty movement. Hitting is tough. But there’s things we can do to make it easier for us, controlling the strike zone and taking advantage of damage pitches.
“He really just left that pitch up, and I didn’t miss the mistake.â€
Pham blasted that pitch 405 on a line just over the right-center field wall. The ball rocketed off his bat with an exit velocity of 106.2 miles per hour. He hit it on such a line that it wasn’t even clear to him whether it would make it over the wall. It didn’t but it landed shy of the first row of the stands.
Asked if he knew it was gone off the bat, Pham replied, “No, no. I’ve played here. Right-center field is tough here. Trust me, I know. I’ve hit plenty of balls there that have not gone out. Right-center field is big here. I would say only San Fran’s right-center field is worse than here for a right-handed hitter.â€
The grand slam turned a three-run game into a comfortable seven-run lead, and it assured that most of the high-leverage workhorses relief pitchers got the night off.
Pham’s grand slam in his first at-bat back triggered a boisterous and rollicking response from the entire Cardinals dugout as he rounded first base with his index finger pointing to the sky. The normally stoic-looking Goldschmidt showed pure elation on his face. Lars Nootbaar and Michael Siani looked as though they might leap over clear over the top rail of the dugout and onto the field.
“Guys pulling for one another,†Pham said of the reaction. “When a team comes together — that togetherness — it’s a dangerous team.â€
When Pham returned to the dugout, the crowd roared for a second time and it continued into Brandon Crawford’s at-bat until Pham popped his head out of the dugout and tipped his helmet to the stadium.
Back in the dugout, Pham joined Pedro Pages, Contreras, Nootbaar and Siani as they briefly posed for the photographers and video cameras in the camera well near the dugout. Pham and Nootbaar both mugged with arms folded across their chests.
“Confidence is contagious,†Nootbaar said. “I think that swag that he brings is contagious. So I just think the confidence and everything that he brings to the game, it’s pretty cool. It kind of just oozes out of him, and you can really feel that. So I’m excited to learn from a guy like that too.â€
The Cardinals defeated the Rangers (52-56) for the first time in the current edition of Busch Stadium. They snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Rangers in their home ballpark, and they evened the three-game series at one game apiece.
Lynn (6-4) earned his first win against the Rangers, which gave him at least one win against all 30 current Major League Baseball franchises. Lynn allowed one run on three hits and one walk in five innings. He also struck out three batters. The lone run he allowed came on a solo home run by Wyatt Langford in the second inning.
“It was good just to get moving after a little bit of a delay and all of that,†Lynn said. “Overall, I made some pitches, made one mistake on the home run. I had a good feel for my changeup of all pitches early on and was able to use it. Obviously, you know, nobody in the world expects me to throw it so it worked out well from the git-go.â€
Lynn and the rest of the starting rotation will get an extra day of rest this time through with set to make a spot start on Wednesday, and set to start on Friday at Wrigley Field. Lynn acknowledged after the game that he’d dealt with a bit of a “barky knee.â€
Lynn, similar to Pham, returned to his original organization this season after a multi-year absence (he left following the 2017 season).
Lynn and Pham were teammates in the minors as well as in the big leagues with the Cardinals. Lynn certainly appreciated the moment that unfolded with Pham coming off the bench.
“When things like that happen it’s just awesome,†Lynn said. “There really is no other way to say it. I’ve known Tommy since Low-A. I think that was the first time we met after I got drafted. We’ve known each other since 20, 21 years old. For both of us to still be playing, to be back here where we started our career, to have success and do all that — hopefully we can keep things rolling.
Pham became the first Cardinal to club a pinch-hit grand slam since . Pham became the first player in franchise history with a pinch-hit grand slam in his first game of the season with the Cardinals.
“From the second that he stepped onto the on deck circle, you could hear the crowd start to get into it,†Marmol said. “Once they said his name, the place went nuts. For your first at-bat back home, to do what he did today — that was special. You could tell. The players loved every second of it. Our fans were really into it, and we’ve got a right-handed bat we can use man. So yeah, welcome back Tommy.â€