Pham ticked off the names of a couple more young pitchers and said, “They’re a lot like the Cardinals. They’re good at developing arms. And they value guys who can kind of play that Billy Beane ‘Money Ball’ aspect.”

As for himself, Pham, who had a 17-game hitting streak end Saturday, said he still hadn’t been able to find the swing path that had eluded him much of the season.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” said Pham. “But when I figure out how to quiet my set-up and add what I’m doing now with that set-up, I’m going to be a better hitter all the way around.”

Much like the Cardinals did with Matt Carpenter, who was hitting .140 on May 15, Pham said Rays hitting coach Chad Mottola and Neander showed him “a piece of paper” on which the Tampa Bay analytics department had broken down Pham’s at-bats and determined that he was hitting the ball as well as last year, when he batted .306 with 23 homers and a .931 OBP.

“The underlying stats – swing percentage, hard-hit percentage, all that fancy stuff,” Pham said. “They said this year my numbers should look like last year with how I’m hitting the ball.

“I thought it was crazy. I didn’t personally feel I was hitting like last year. I felt I wasn’t using the whole field as well.