ATLANTA — Cubs right fielder Kyle Tucker was surprised by the soreness and tightness in his calf before the game Tuesday, after days of progress and an intensive session the day before testing the injury.
“I was hoping to feel good today and coming in, and hopefully getting in there,” Tucker said before the Cubs’ 6-1 win against the Braves. “But obviously, it didn’t really work out like that. So that part is kind of frustrating.”
Instead, the Cubs put Tucker on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to Saturday. In a corresponding move, they recalled rookie catcher/designated hitter Moises Ballesteros. Manager Craig Counsell said he didn’t know if it would just be a minimum stay.
“I’m hopeful,” Counsell said. “But I was wrong in terms of avoiding the IL. So, we just have to get to a point where he’s not symptomatic and not feeling it doing baseball activities.”
With Tucker sidelined for at least a week, the Cubs will give him several days off before they test it with running drills again. But Tucker said throwing and hitting feel “pretty normal,” so he expects to keep up with baseball activities that don’t aggravate his calf in the meantime.
“It’s really just the running part that bothers me,” he said. “Which, obviously, you’ve got to run after you hit the ball, so just trying to get better at that.”
As the Cubs weighed whether to put Tucker on the IL in the aftermath of his exit from the Cubs’ 4-3 win against the Braves last Tuesday, his symptoms were minor enough that they expected him to be back in the lineup within about a week. And the extra September roster spots meant the Cubs weren’t really playing down a man, compared to the rest of the year.
If they’d put him on the IL on Saturday or before, Tucker could have become eligible to return a few days earlier than is the case now. But the way his injury presented Tuesday, it appeared he’d need another week to recover regardless.
“You want to go out there and help the team win, do what you can out on the field and help everyone around you,” Tucker said. “Now I’ve just got to do that, but without being on the field.”
He watched from the dugout as the Cubs beat the Braves to end a three-game slide.
Rookie right-hander Cade Horton continued his impressive second half by holding the Braves to one run in 6⅓ innings.
The Tucker-less offense had a slow start, with plenty of baserunners but only two runs in the first seven innings. In the end, the Cubs’ persistence paid off.
“I like those games, where you create pressure, pressure, pressure,” Counsell said. “And you’re like, why didn’t we break through? But that’s what constant pressure does, and we did a much better job of that tonight, of more consistent pressure and making the other guy make big pitches, and eventually you get a mistake.”
They loaded the bases in the first inning, but only got one run out of it, on a sacrifice fly from Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Then in the third inning, Crow-Armstrong came through again, with an RBI single. But that was the only run they scored in the inning, despite tallying three hits and a walk.
Finally in the eighth, the Cubs put together a four-run rally. This time after loading the bases, Dansby Swanson drew a run-scoring walk off Braves reliever Alexis Diaz. The Braves brought in right-hander Connor Seabold to face rookie Matt Shaw, who lined a two-run single into center field.
Braves center fielder Michael Harris II’s throw beat Swanson to third, but as Swanson stutter-stepped and made a darting slide into the bag, the ball got away from Nacho Alvarez Jr., allowing Swanson to score as well.
“We’ve got a lot of good other guys to, not fill any place, not do anything other than just hold it down,” Crow-Armstrong said of navigating the loss of Tucker. “… We just keep showing up every day, and just wait on his return. Because if we’re hot when he’s back, then that’s just, that’s more fun.”