Dodgers sit Kyle Tucker, search for answers behind his confounding home-road splits

LOS ANGELES — Kyle Tucker has produced essentially the same numbers for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season as he always has — just not at Dodger Stadium.

That’s become a problem for Tucker and the Dodgers in the first season of his four-year, $240 million contract, which set a record for highest average annual value, and it’s the oddest reason a player has sat out a game for the reigning back-to-back champs.

Tucker has produced an .840 OPS in his 245 plate appearances when on the road this season, right in line with his career mark (.844). At home, he has morphed into a shell of himself, putting up a .566 OPS and looking like a completely different hitter.

The Dodger Stadium version of Tucker would rank as the worst qualified hitter in baseball this season. So when Dave Roberts sat him at home Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers, the manager said his extreme home-road splits were part of the reason.

“Just being at home right now, I see the frustration,” Roberts said.

The recent sample has added to a growing, perplexing trend. Tucker had a strong trip last week through Chicago and Arizona, collecting eight hits and a pair of home runs and showing enough encouraging signs to say, “I feel a lot better.”

Then the Dodgers returned home. Tucker drew a walk off the bench in his first plate appearance of the homestand and has reached only twice since, also on walks. The 0-for-16 has dropped his batting average at home this season to .192.

Tucker’s drop-off from road to home this season is the second-largest by wRC+ this season. None of the Dodgers coaches or executives asked by The Athletic understand why.

“I don’t think we have a reason behind it,” Roberts said Saturday.

“I don’t know,” general manager Brandon Gomes said. “That’s a better question for Tuck.”

“It could be a little bit of variance,” hitting coach Aaron Bates said.

“It’s one of those things that — it’s baseball,” fellow hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said. “There’s not really a clear explanation of it.”

Dodger Stadium is a favorable ballpark for hitters this season, particularly for home runs, according to Statcast’s Park Factors. Tucker has two at home this season. In 40 plate appearances as a visitor at Dodger Stadium with the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs, Tucker went 10-for-33 (.303) with a pair of home runs and four doubles. It’s not as if he hasn’t hit well at the ballpark before, even in a small sample.

While there is new signage above the batter’s eye this season to mark the Dodgers’ new naming-rights deal, both hitting coaches and Gomes quickly disputed any issues with Tucker (or any hitter) picking up the baseball at Dodger Stadium.

“As far as him seeing the ball, something like that, there’s nothing like that going on,” Bates said.

“That’s not it,” Gomes said. “Talking to our hitting guys, you would know if there was something with the batter’s eye.”

Roberts said Tucker himself wasn’t even aware of the extreme splits until recently. The downswing at home has tanked his line in his disappointing first season in Los Angeles, where the highest-paid player by average annual value has essentially produced like a league-average hitter (98 wRC+), tied for 106th among qualified major-league hitters in that mark.

Sitting Tucker against Brewers phenom and Cy Young front-runner Jacob Misiorowski resulted from some of the frustration Tucker has shown in recent days since returning home, Roberts said. That included Thursday night, when he struck out in his first at-bat against Shane Drohan and fired his bat into the dirt in front of him.

“(When) it’s the first at-bat of a game, and you’re really showing emotion, that’s a tell from a guy who doesn’t show a lot of emotion,” Roberts said. “So those things, as they build up, for me, that tells me that you need a little (rest), you need to watch a baseball game and kind of take some of that frustration, and put it to the side.”

Roberts said Tucker will be back in the lineup Sunday, the final game of the Dodgers’ seven-game homestand, as well as all three games at Coors Field. Roberts and the organization are waiting for Tucker to find any traction. Maybe a three-game stint on the road will be a chance to reconfigure things.

Much like everything else involving Tucker this season, the Dodgers are searching for answers.

“He just hasn’t caught that long hot streak,” Van Scoyoc said. “You’ve seen it, maybe, for a series, or for a couple of games, but not for an extended period like he’s capable of.”

Which is hard to do when he hasn’t been able to figure out the ballpark in which he plays half his games.

— Eno Sarris contributed to this report