Kyle Tucker has struggled with consistency for the better part of the 2026 season, but showed signs of a potential breakout in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 9-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.
Tucker began his afternoon with a two-run single that went off the first-base bag and put the Dodgers up 2-0 in the bottom of the third inning. Then in the fifth, Tucker doubled and ended up scoring on a two-run single by Alex Call.
Tucker went 2-for-4 with one RBI and one run scored as he continues to work on finding his swing.
“Yeah, he’s working hard,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said over the weekend when discussing Tucker’s prolonged slump. “It’s a work in progress. I think he’s frustrated with his swing, and really getting beat on some pitches today, not hitting it hard. But he’s working through it.”
Tucker has tried several methods to right the ship, and on Saturday that expanded to breaking from his normal routine to hit off the high-velocity machine and then take batting practice on the field as well.
“It’s telling,” Roberts said of Tucker’s adjustmet. “He doesn’t hit on the field, then he hit velocity early and took batting practice on the field. So that’s very telling of where he’s at.”
Tucker started to hit well at the midway point of May, but wasn’t able to sustain the success. He finished the month just 7-for-41 (.141) with two doubles, two triples and four RBI over his final 11 games.
“The performance certainly was much. I think if you take out the last couple days, the month of May was really good,” Roberts said. “But it just still for me, didn’t look right. And I don’t think he felt right.
“So I think it speaks to his toughness and fight to try to perform. But it still wasn’t right as far as not being close to locked in. The quality of contact.”
Kyle Tucker’s 2026 season
Through 56 games with the Dodgers this season, Tucker is batting just .242/.338/.391 with 15 doubles, two triples, four home runs and 27 RBI across 240 plate appearances.
Roberts isn’t sure why the four-time All-Star has gotten off to a slow start, but knows he continues to put in the work to get back on track.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know that answer,” Roberts said. “I know that he’s working hard to kind of work through it. I do know that when he’s not getting walks at the clip that he’s used to, that’s kind of a red flag.
“I do think the swing rate is higher than it has been in his career, whether it’s the first pitch or just in total. So I think that’s a part of it. I think that speaks to not being selective enough because he is a guy that, by nature, can run deep counts and still be fine getting to two strikes.
“But it just seems like he’s much more hyper-aggressive than I recall. I don’t know the numbers to back that up, that’s just what my eyes see. But yeah, he’s working hard to try to work through it.”
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