Kyle Tucker

Tucker hadn’t hit higher than sixth in the postseason. Tonight, Shohei Ohtani has been dropped to sixth, and Max Muncy is sitting initially against left-hander Robert Gasser. The lineup: SS Mookie Betts, 1B Freddie Freeman, LF Teoscar Hernández, RF Tucker, CF Andy Pages, DH Ohtani, C Will Smith, 3B Miguel Rojas, 2B Tommy Edman.

Tucker came through with a signature moment in his Dodgers playoff debut after a calamitous regular season where he finished with a career-worst .715 OPS. The 29-year-old marquee free agent addition crushed a 408-foot no-doubter to right field off Atlanta reliever AJ Smith-Shawver to give Los Angeles a commanding 4-1 advantage in the sixth inning. He also singled and stole a base in his first postseason contest in a Dodgers uniform.

Tucker is back in right field and hitting fifth after sitting out Sunday’s series finale against the Giants with a right leg contusion. It doesn’t appear to be a significant concern heading into the home stretch of the regular season. The 29-year-old former fantasy star has shown some real signs of life recently, hitting .313 (15-for-48) with five homers and one steal over his last 15 games.

Tucker made an early exit from Saturday’s game after fouling a ball off of his right leg. The injury isn’t believed to be serious, but Tucker was still sore on Sunday so the Dodgers opted to give him an extra day off to rest. Enrique Hernandez will start in his place and will bat eighth against Giants’ left-hander Matt Wilkinson.

Tucker left the game early, but it was hard to tell if that was the result of injury or because of the lopsided score. The foul ball ended up a little higher on his leg than it did when a similar incident led to a fractured shin in 2024.

Tucker came up just a triple shy of the cycle, and he has never actually hit for the cycle in his career. In September of last year, he came a double shy of hitting for one against the Marlins. Tucker’s first-inning home run off Brady Singer was his 16th of the season to go along with 69 RBI. He came into this game hitting .193/.300/.369 in 52 games in the second half. He hasn’t been striking out, and he has a 7.2 percent barrel rate over that timeframe, so maybe he can get it going before the playoffs begin.

He also picked up his 11th steal of the year. He’s been perfect there, so it sure would be nice if he’d been a little more aggressive. Since the start of 2024, he’s been caught just three times in 50 steal attempts.

Tucker’s sacrifice fly in the third inning brought home Tommy Edman to give the Dodgers their first run of the night, but that was just the start of a big night for Tucker. In the top of the seventh inning, Tucker stepped up with the bases loaded and sent a slider from Marlins reliever Cade Gibson 413 feet into the stands for a grand slam, pushing the Dodgers’ lead to 6-1. Tucker has now tallied three hits in back-to-back nights and is slashing .318/.360/.864 in his last seven games.

It took facing a catcher, but Tucker collected his first three-hit game of the second half. He was 10-for-81 with one homer in his previous 24 games, even though he had a nice 13/12 K/BB ratio during the span.

It was Tucker’s first homer since August 8, and just the 12th of the season for the 29-year-old. It hasn’t hurt the Dodgers much, but Tucker has been one of the biggest disappointments in baseball in his first season in Los Angeles with a slash of just .226/.327/.359.

They’ll take a seat against LHP Chris Sale. Alex Call will draw the start and bat seventh for Tucker; this appears to just be a routine day off. Enrique Hernández is playing third for Muncy and Muncy appears to be in some danger of losing at-bats against lefties now that Hernández is back.

Tucker’s miscue Sunday was a little embarrassing, but he had a solid excuse while fighting the sun. Tonight’s drop was just bad, and it was paired with another poor offensive game, this one in Coors. As rough as Tucker’s year has been, he’s been just fine on the road; he came into tonight hitting .275/.371/.469 away from Dodger Stadium. Denver provided no immediate reprieve for him, however, as he turned in his seventh straight hitless game.

With the Dodgers down 4-1 in the ninth, Tucker struggled with the sun on Jackson Chourio’s fly to deep right and had it go off his glove. Probably because of the sun issues, it wasn’t ruled an error, and given the score, it wasn’t particularly costly. Still, it was another brutal game for Tucker, who finished the week 0-for-19. Maybe he’ll get it together in Coors over the next three days.

The apparent day off comes against Jacob Misiorowski, which is something most hitters probably wouldn’t complain about. Tucker did well against the Cubs and D-backs last week and was trending nicely in xwOBA terms for a time, but he’s 0-for-16 versus the Royals and Brewers this week. Alex Call is stating in right field tonight.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is shaking things up by moving Freddie Freeman up to the second spot in the order with Andy Pages following and Tucker in the cleanup spot. Max Muncy and Mookie Betts remain in the middle of the lineup with Teoscar Hernández on the bench.

It appears to be a matchup-based decision with lefty Noah Cameron on the hill for Kansas City. Tucker has shown some real signs of life recently, hitting .298 (14-for-47) with four homers and one steal over his last 15 games. It’ll be Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernández in the outfield corners for Los Angeles in this one.

It looked like Tucker was going to have the go-ahead homer, as it gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead late in the contest. Edwin Diaz didn’t allow that to happen with another blown save, but it does come in a victory, and it does give Tucker 11 homers on the season.

Tucker was able to silence his boos for just a moment with an opposite-field homer off Javier Assad to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. That would be the last run of the game for Los Angeles, as they’ve now lost five straight and weren’t able to pick up a win in Tarik Skubal’s debut. Tucker also singled to improve his slash to a still-disappointing .243/.341/.381 in his first year with Los Angeles.

Tucker homered off Nolan McLean in the third and made a bid for another in the fourth, hitting a 361-foot fly that was caught in left field. Both were barrels, so he now has 19 of them and nine homers for the season. He still hasn’t gotten hot at any point, but that his strikeout rate is down this month can’t be bad news; he’s fanned just eight times in 69 plate appearances while hitting .250/.333/.383 in July.

Whatever is the opposite of buyer’s remorse could probably define Tucker’s feelings as he visited Citi Field for the first time since considering signing with the Mets this past winter. His Dodgers had a very clean and easy win here aided by Tucker’s eighth inning blast that added some valuable insurance for them. It was his first home run since all the way back on June 27th as he desperately tries to pull himself out of his season-long slump.