A replica of the Jobu figurine from the movie ‘‘Major League’’ was perched on the locker shelf over Cubs right fielder Kyle Tucker’s left shoulder as he fielded questions from a scrum of reporters Tuesday about his recent struggles at the plate.
‘‘Anything,’’ Tucker said of what he was looking at to turn around his offensive performance. ‘‘Anything that’s staying inside and through the ball and hitting the ball up the middle. I just need to try and continue to figure that out. And hopefully figure it out quick.’’
Maybe channeling the fictional character Pedro Cerrano by asking for Jobu’s mystical assistance could help? It was worth a shot.
Tucker didn’t play in Game 1 of the Cubs’ doubleheader against the Brewers and was out of the lineup for Game 2, a break from what has been a brutal seven-week stretch at the plate.
Tucker, a four-time All-Star and a driving force in the Cubs’ offensive success before the All-Star break, entered the day with a .189 batting average and only four extra-base hits since the beginning of July. He said he never had gone this long without answers to an offensive rut.
‘‘We talked Sunday night a little bit,’’ manager Craig Counsell said. ‘‘We put a lot on the table, and then we’ll see where that goes.’’
In recent days, Wrigley Field has been anything but ‘‘The Friendly Confines’’ for Tucker. He was booed in consecutive home games. When he went 0-for-4 on Monday, fans began voicing their displeasure as early as his second at-bat, and their boos intensified after the third.
When he was asked about not running out a grounder to first, Tucker said: ‘‘It’s kind of exhausting. I don’t know how many times I’ve rolled over to first or second. Regardless, you’ve still got to run down the line, whether you’re out by 50 feet or not.’’
It was another example of the mental toll the slump has taken on Tucker.
In a game against the Blue Jays last week in Toronto, he chucked his helmet into the visitors’ dugout at Rogers Centre after again grounding out to the right side of the field.
‘‘We try to help, try to support, try to motivate in any way we can,’’ Counsell said of the mental side. ‘‘But, like the mechanics thing, there are no perfect answers.’’
Though Tucker’s swing decisions have remained a strength, mechanical issues have led to a spike in his ground-ball rate, which has gone from 24.8% in April to 53.7% this month.
‘‘There was a little bit of a timing thing, and then we noticed his bat was a little bit flatter than normal,’’ hitting coach Dustin Kelly said this month. ‘‘So that’s something that we’ve talked about for a couple of weeks. It doesn’t happen just like that, but it’s definitely something we’re aware of and he’s aware of.’’
In other words, identifying the issue isn’t the same thing as unlocking the solution.
Tucker, who typically hits in the batting cages before the game, even tried switching up his routine last week by taking batting practice on the field.
‘‘It’s a little thing that puts it back in place,’’ Counsell said. ‘‘It’s probably a simple thing that puts it back in place. . . . Doesn’t have to be, like, a successful swing, even. Could be a foul ball that puts it back in place.’’
Grinding through hasn’t sped up that process, so Counsell deemed it time to try something new: a break from the frustration.
‘‘It’s not for lack of effort on either the coaching side or Kyle’s side,’’ president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said this week, noting the Cubs also had drawn on the expertise of people outside of the organization who have worked with Tucker in the past. ‘‘He’s too good of a player for it not to click. One of these days, it’s going to click, and he’s going to get hot again. Hopefully it’s a torrid hot streak, like it was in April.’’
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