Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #110: 8/3 @ Giants

Roster moves

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves:

• OF Tommy Pham reported to the team and will be active for today’s game.
• Optioned OF Kyle Lewis to Triple-A Reno following last night’s game.
• The D-backs’ 40-man roster is at 40.

Another brief stint on the roster for Lewis, and not a great deal more success here. Over the week he was back with the big club, he went .200/.294/.200 over 17 PA for a .494 OPS. That’s not too different from the .167 /.167/.389 line, for a .556 OPS, which he posted at the start of the season before his still mysterious “illness” kept him off the field for more than six weeks. All told, it’s a .532 OPS (45 OPS+). Startling to think that less than three years ago, he won Rookie of the Year. I guess that award is about as meaningful as the Dodgers’ World Series victory. :) Still, I guess it’s better than Cooper Hummel, for whom he was traded. Hummel had a -6 OPS+ over 10 games for Seattle, before being sent down to Triple-A.

Tommy Pham arrives in town, and goes straight into the line-up, batting third as the DH. It’s interesting that the team has chosen to overlook a couple of questionable incidents in Pham’s past. Last year, he went full Will Smith on Joc Pedersen, apparently over a fantasy football disagreement. And back in 2020, he was stabbed in the car-park of a San Diego strip-club, following an altercation - he’s now suing the establishment in question. It appears the first incident may have caused at least one club to cross him off their list. Per Andrew Baggarly, “I inquired about whether Tommy Pham would be a complete non-starter for the Giants. Was told unequivocally that they will not consider anyone with a DV incident in their past, which includes Pham. They consider the Joc slap an assault.”

Let’s hope the remaining two months of his time in Arizona is controversy-free.