Kyle Tucker goes deep in Game 1 win over Braves

The slumping slugger battled cleanup in each of the first two games of the series and was dropped down to sixth against a southpaw in Game 3 on Wednesday. Perhaps the move back to the top of the lineup will provide the offensive jolt that the Dodgers need to stave off elimination and keep their dreams of a three-peat alive. Here’s the full lineup that they will trot out against Brewers’ southpaw Shane Drohan on Thursday: Ohtani (DH), Mookie Betts (SS), Freddie Freeman (1B), Will Smith (C), Kyle Tucker (RF), Teoscar Hernandez (LF), Miguel Rojas (2B), Andy Pages (CF) and Enrique Hernandez (3B).

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 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.

De Paula takes a seat with veteran Teoscar Hernández at DH and Kyle Tucker in right field to face Cincinnati southpaw Andrew Abbott. The 21-year-old phenom went 0-for-5 out of the leadoff spot on Tuesday and is hitting just .143 (2-for-14) with one homer, three RBI and one steal in five games since being promoted from Double-A Tulsa last week. The fact that he’s hitting some initial turbulence isn’t a surprise at all considering his relative inexperience while facing big-league arms for the first time. He has an extremely bright future ahead of him as an all-around fantasy contributor. The big question is whether he’ll have a spot with Los Angeles once Shohei Ohtani (biceps, knee) is ready to return from the injured list next week.

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.