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Watch: Tommy Pham Pulls Usual Antics After Facing Philadelphia Phillies Pitcher

Tommy Pham showed he still has plenty of fire entering the twilight of his career during the spring training game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Declan Walsh

Sep 7, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Royals right fielder Tommy Pham (22) rounds third base to score a run in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium.
Sep 7, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Royals right fielder Tommy Pham (22) rounds third base to score a run in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium. / Peter Aiken-Imagn Images
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Tommy Pham has added yet another stop to his remarkable journeyman MLB career ahead of the 2025 campaign with an offseason move to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and it appears through a handful of Spring Training games that the 37-year-old's eccentric personality has endured.

The Pirates matched up with their Keystone State rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, on Friday afternoon for a Spring Training matchup in Florida, reuniting television audiences with one of the sport's more beloved score bugs and Pham's patently unpredictable on-air interviews.

Pham was mic'd up for his first at-bat of the day as Pittsburgh's lead-off hitter but was quickly deposited back into the dugout, striking out on four pitches as he failed to keep up with a Cristopher Sanchez fastball. Still with just one hit in the month of March, Pham offered an exasperated, explicit remark for the Sportsnet Pittsburgh audience.

"The (expletive) that I've been working on ain't been working," Pham said. "There's always time to go back to the (expletive) tee."

Matching up with Sanchez, at least the first go-around, proved to be a similarly frustrating undertaking for the rest of the Pirates lineup, as the Phillies southpaw continues to impress this spring. Sanchez allowed just one baserunner through the first three innings while racking up seven strikeouts, which culminated in Pham grounding out in his second at-bat to end the bottom of the third.

Sanchez, however, would surrender a leadoff single to begin the fourth inning, which led Rob Thomson to yank the Dominican pitcher. Tyler Phillips came on in relief before allowing a walk and a single, resulting in Sanchez's lone earned run of the afternoon.

Pham's third and final plate appearance resulted in a walk the following frame, helping to fuel a two-run fifth inning that gave Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead. Philadelphia halved the deficit in the sixth inning thanks to a towering solo shot from Kody Clemens but was unable to push across the tying run, falling to a Grapefruit League-worst 4-8 for this spring training season.

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Declan Walsh
DECLAN WALSH

Declan Walsh is an MLB Writer for On SI and has previously covered women’s basketball for NCAA.com and served as a trending writer for 247Sports. He graduated from the University of Florida in 2023 and completed undergraduate internships at The Palm Beach Post and Sports Illustrated. Declan grew up in the very real central New Jersey and now lives in Philadelphia. You can follow him on Twitter @declanaw.

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