Kyle Tucker was back in the Cubs’ lineup Thursday, returning from a two-day break in time to go hitless in the finale of a pivotal five-game series with the first-place Brewers.
The All-Star right fielder missed three of those five contests so critical to the NL Central race, sat down by manager Craig Counsell after his offensive slump continued into Monday’s loss.
But even before Tucker stepped back into his normal No. 2 spot in the batting order, he remained a hot topic, with Counsell confirming a Wednesday report that Tucker played with a fractured finger earlier this summer.
While his offensive numbers didn’t start dipping until well after the injury occurred on June 1, fans wondered whether the decision to play through the malady had something to do with Tucker’s statistical tumble.
But June was perhaps the best offensive month of Tucker’s season to date. He slashed .311/.404/.578 with five homers and nine doubles. The power didn’t leave his bat until the following month, after he played through the injury for weeks. In July, he slashed .218/.380/.295 with one homer and three doubles, and he’s slashing just .138/.231/.138 with no extra-base hits in 16 games this month.
Tucker said Thursday he’s no longer feeling pain, and though it’s possible the finger fracture might have led to some swing changes, he was unsure whether that was the case, or if there were any effects stemming from that awkward slide on the base paths nearly two months ago.
“I didn’t really try to change my mechanics or anything,” Tucker said. “It might have gradually happened over time. I was playing with it, I was doing fine with it, and after a while [the production] turned. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the reason why.
“I don’t know how much it really affected my setup and my swing and everything. It didn’t feel great at the time, but I dealt with it. Obviously, you make adjustments to go out there and play. … It’s kind of how things go.”
For anyone wondering why the Cubs didn’t act differently once the fracture was discovered, it comes down to Tucker being able to soldier through the injury without many ill effects.
Tucker confirmed Thursday what Counsell said the night before, that initial imaging didn’t show the fracture and it was discovered only after he’d been playing through the pain for some time without his production slipping.
“[Eventually, more imaging revealed] a small fracture in there. It was already a week or two after [the injury occurred], to where it was already healing,” Tucker said. “I just kept playing through it, thought at some point it’d go away. It stuck around for a little bit, but I was playing and felt fine when I was hitting the ball.
“I was already playing through it for however long. I was doing fine and still playing well, so I was like, ‘I’m just going to keep playing.’ There wasn’t really a need to go on the IL because I could still do everything. It was more of a pain-tolerance [thing] at that point, rather than that I couldn’t physically do anything.”
Players grinding through bumps and bruises is commonplace, and the eye-popping numbers Tucker put up in June signalled that, while less than ideal, the decision to keep going wasn’t having a negative impact.
It’s only now, with Tucker mired in a horrid slump, that Wrigleyville has something new to focus on.
“He was playing. And he was playing well,” Counsell said. “We don’t know the answers completely. … We made a decision together to keep [him] playing because he was playing well and able to manage it and tolerate it, which is something that players do during the season, normally, because they can get through things.”
After falling seven games behind the Brewers with Thursday’s 4-1 loss, the Cubs need Tucker – and a host of others – to get back to normal at the plate if they’re going to make things interesting down the stretch.