Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Kyle Tucker has had an up-and-down first season with the Boys in Blue.
He made headlines for his four-year, $240 million contract, then largely underperformed for the first half of the season.
Recently, it seemed he was turning things around, hitting .412/.524/.529/1.053, including a double and a home run, in a 10-game span, but then he went 0-for-4 on Tuesday night, including a strikeout and grounding out into a double play.
As detailed by ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, Tucker is “working overtime” to improve for the second half of this season.
What’s limiting Kyle Tucker’s effectiveness at the plate?
The issue, as Tucker explained, is putting himself behind in the count.
He likes to swing at early pitches, but the problem with that strategy is that it makes it harder to salvage an at-bat if you’re already down a strike or two.
“Throughout the first half I just haven’t been able to put good swings,” Tucker said. “That’s where I’ll foul it off or swing through it. And then I’m just in worse counts, and they end up having more freedom to be able to throw whatever they want. And then you’ll just naturally start chasing, to where if I hit the ball in the first place and hit it for a single or double or whatever, just barrel something, I won’t even get in those counts to have to chase something.”
That’s not the only issue Tucker is facing, though.
In Gonzalez’s piece, a scout said Tucker’s “timing is screwed.”
“He’s been caught in-between a s—load all season,” the scout said. “He gets drifty, and his swing almost looks like a two-handed tennis backhand. When he was at his best in Houston, he was grounded and staying on his backside longer, which allowed his barrel to really accelerate through the zone with leverage.”
Gonzalez also noted that Tucker is working hard to fix his issues, putting to rest the notion that he doesn’t care about baseball as much as he should.
And with his rough start to the year, that’s more true than ever.
“A team official noted that Tucker has probably put in more extra work over these past three months than he has over these past three years, simply because he had never failed like this,” Gonzalez wrote.
Do you think Kyle Tucker can turn it around?
