(Busch Stadium) Following the St. Louis Cardinals 9-6 loss on Wednesday night, outfielder Tommy Pham offered some on-point analysis of how his team has played this season. Taking his time for thoughtful response to each question, Pham perhaps had the best description when he termed them as “in-between” that of being a good or bad team.
Their latest game being a perfect example of the good and bad of 2017–as errors and homeruns resulted in a 7-run deficit, but the Cardinals also fought back to put up six runs and actually challenge to win the game.
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“I don’t see how you can, a loss is a loss,” responded Pham if there was something to be said for getting back into the game. “I thought Leake didn’t have his best stuff, but he pitched well enough to let us win. That’s all you can ask from your pitcher. We have to do a better job of just going out there and playing great, mistake-free baseball.”
The Cardinals committed two errors in the first two innings of play, which in part led to the big innings by Miami.
“Every day, things are going to happen just because of the difficulty of this game,” said Pham. “But I believe, when a pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff or when there’s a situation in the game, you just have to bear down and really try to help the guy out.”
“We have the potential,” said Pham. “Right now, you see it time to time but everything has to be right. I mean, maybe not necessarily. We have to do what is required. If we do that–we have a great team.”
Perhaps most critical of his own play, Pham recorded his NL-leading 7th assist of the season from centerfield last night and also had a pair of doubles–the second of which he successfully challenged the arm of Giancarlo Stanton.
“That’s just expectations for myself–if I hit a ball down the line like that, I expect to get a double not a single,” explained Pham. “I was kind of mad at myself, because the first double should’ve been a triple. But I thought he was going to catch it. I’m sitting here judging it like he was gonna catch it and it cost me an extra base. So, run hard out of the box.”
But as noted above, all is not lost. With all the frustrations and miscues, the Cardinals have shown a resiliency this season.
“There is progress,” said Pham. “But in order to be a playoff-caliber team, you have to do day-in and day-out. You just have to do what’s required to win games. We do it at stretches, then we lose it.”
And there’s one way to get things on track.
“Execution,” stated Pham. “It’s up to us players to go out there and get the job done.”
photo credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports, Bill Greenblatt/UPI
