Tommy Pham injures finger with angry bat slam
An hour and a half before first pitch Sunday morning, the Diamondbacks made a late change to their lineup, scratching Tommy Pham and replacing him with Evan Longoria at designated hitter.
The issue, it turned out, was a bruised right pinky. And the injury, Pham revealed after a 8-5 loss to the Orioles, was self-inflicted.
When he struck out looking in the eighth inning Saturday on a pitch that clipped the bottom of the strike zone, Pham stared down home plate umpire Nestor Ceja and exchanged a few words. Afterward — and off camera — he walked into the Diamondbacks’ dugout and slammed his bat in a bat rack behind the team’s benches. When he did so, his pinky got caught in the rack, causing swelling.
“We got an X-ray,” Pham said. “No break, so that's good news, but swollen.”
Lovullo said Pham was “trying to fight his way into the lineup and wanted to play” Sunday, but he experienced discomfort on his pre-game swings and was removed from the lineup.
“It's that top hand so there's a lot of pressure that's being put on that pinky through the course of your swing,” Lovullo said.
Both Lovullo and Pham expected the outfielder to be back in the lineup for Monday’s series opener.
Any extended absence would leave a hole in a Diamondbacks’ lineup that lacks impactful power bats. Pham began his Diamondbacks’ tenure in a mini-slump after coming over from the Mets at the trade deadline, but he has a .461 slugging percentage with 11 extra-base hits since Aug. 8 — the most on the team in that span.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tommy Pham injures finger with angry bat slam
