HOUSTON –– Last year, Kyle Tucker was warmly embraced in his first trip back to Houston after being traded away by the Astros.
His former club played his walk-up song. His former fan base wore crowns in honor of his “King Tuck” nickname. And even though he was a member of the Chicago Cubs, his time as a homegrown Astros star seemed to be warmly remembered.
“We had a lot of success playing in this city and on this field,” Tucker told the New York Times. “So it’s cool.”
Fast-forward a year, however, and fan feelings have evidently grown more conflicted.
While Tucker reiterated how much he “loved being here, playing here” upon his return with the Dodgers on Monday, the hometown crowd greeted him differently –– showering him with a smattering of boos.
“I don’t really focus on crowd noise and stuff. Most of the time I don’t really hear it a lot,” Tucker said, brushing off a question about his reaction to the boos. “So I don’t really have a take on it.”
That didn’t mean it didn’t still come as a surprise.
Tucker drew the boos during both his pregame introduction, as well as when he was announced for his first at-bat of the night. The groans only grew after he hit an RBI single in the first inning, then a solo homer in the third, turning in one of his better performances during a slow opening month with the Dodgers.
It all likely had something to do with Tucker’s new team, of course, after the four-time All-Star signed a $240 million contract in Los Angeles this offseason.
As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts noted pregame when reflecting on a Dodgers-Astros rivalry that dates back to the controversial 2017 World Series: “Our fan base has feelings about them. Their fan base has feelings about us.”
Still, that it extended to Tucker –– who was a three-time All-Star and 2022 World Series champion with an Astros team that originally drafted him fifth overall in 2015 –– was an unexpected development.
The Dodgers would be happy for Tucker to keep being jeered this week, as long as it means his bat continues to heat up.
While he is still well off his typical star-level production, he has slowly begun to turn the ship of late.
He is batting .262 with five doubles, one home run, five RBIs and a .786 OPS since being dropped into the clean-up spot over his last 11 games. In his 23 outings to start the season before that point, he was hitting only .233 with a .676 OPS.
“I had a couple good at-bats and a couple not really,” Tucker said after Monday’s 2-for-5, two-RBI showing. “I’m just going to try to keep barreling balls.”
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