Pham slams Cardinals' listless offense: 'We're not good'
Tommy Pham, whose unexpected breakout has been one of the few bright spots in a disappointing season for the St. Louis Cardinals, offered up a blunt assessment of his club's lineup following Friday's 3-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
"Man. We're not good. We're not dynamic," Pham told MLB.com's Jenifer Langosch. "We lack speed. We lack power. And if you look at all the good teams, they have that. They have both of those elements - speed and power. We just have a lot of guys, man, who are still trying to figure it out. And that element doesn't help either."
Pham has a point. Since returning from the All-Star break, the Cardinals - 4 1/2 games back of the second National League wild-card spot - rank among the bottom-10 in the majors in multiple offensive categories, including OPS (.709), isolated power (.127), wRC+ (88), and strikeout rate (24.1 percent).
Pham, in fact, is the only Cardinals regular with an OPS above .900 since the All-Star break, while Matt Carpenter, Kolten Wong, and Jedd Gyorko have all tailed off dramatically after putting up strong numbers through the first half of the 2017 campaign.
Since the All-Star break (min. 40 PA)
| Name | OPS | AVG | HR | BB/K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tommy Pham | .977 | .364 | 3 | 0.50 |
| Randal Grichuk | .898 | .286 | 4 | 0.17 |
| Yadier Molina | .831 | .308 | 3 | 0.14 |
| Matt Carpenter | .759 | .286 | 0 | 0.57 |
| Paul DeJong | .703 | .222 | 5 | 0.13 |
| Kolten Wong | .660 | .270 | 0 | 0.50 |
| Dexter Fowler | .544 | .200 | 0 | 0.88 |
| Jedd Gyorko | .510 | .186 | 1 | 0.35 |
Wong, who's hitting .226 over his last nine contests, shares Pham's frustration.
"We're just one hit away from turning things around," Wong said. "It's frustrating. We're all mad at the situation, knowing we can all do better. We're all coming in early. Guys are doing unorthodox things trying to figure it out. ... For some reason, things aren't clicking and they haven't clicked all year for us."
Still, manager Mike Matheny wasn't quite as critical as Pham after dropping Friday's series opener at Great American Ball Park, noting his players are still putting up quality at-bats more often than not.
"It's not like we're not having good at-bats," Matheny said. "We're just not having them right when we need them. We need to just get everybody locked in, and it becomes contagious like everything else."