CHICAGO –– The first time Kyle Tucker was booed at one of his former home ballparks this year, he shrugged it off.
When it happened again on Monday night, he seemed decidedly less amused.
In his first trip back to Wrigley Field since leaving the Cubs for the Dodgers in free agency this winter, Tucker received a reception that belied that ballpark’s “Friendly Confines” nickname.
He was voraciously booed before his first at-bat. Then again and again with each subsequent trip to the plate.
“I don’t know,” he said when asked of the hostilities afterward. “I tried my hardest last year. I tried playing through a hand fracture and calf thing, just trying to get back for the playoffs for them, trying to do what I could to help out the team.”
Evidently, that didn’t sway a nearly 40,000-person crowd on the North Side to welcome him with a warm greeting.
Tucker’s lone season with the Cubs didn’t go according to plan, of course. After an All-Star first half, the slugger slumped down the stretch while battling his hand and calf injuries.
Though the team still made the playoffs, and prevailed in a three-game series against the Padres in the wild-card round, their NLDS elimination to the rival Brewers ultimately qualified as a disappointment.
Tucker’s 4-for-16, one-RBI performance in that series also left a disappointing impression –– at least, it seemed, among the fan base –– before he entered free agency and signed his $240 million deal with the Dodgers this past January.
“I mean, I liked playing here last year,” Tucker said. “There were some really great guys over there and they have a good team.”
“Didn’t end up great at the end of the year,” he added of his up-and-down campaign. “But I had a good run.”
Monday’s scene was not exactly new for Tucker.
During a May trip back to Houston to face the Astros –– the team with which he spent his first seven MLB seasons before being traded to the Cubs last year –– the outfielder was also booed in a way he hadn’t been during his only prior visit in 2025 (having “Dodgers” across his chest seemed to have something to do with that).
That night, however, he said “I don’t really focus on crowd noise and stuff” and “don’t really have a take.”
On Monday, his answer struck a different tone, even while he insisted it was “nice being back and playing here.”
On the field, Tucker went 2-for-3 with a walk in the defeat, snapping the latest slump in his disappointing debut season with the Dodgers after going 3-for-19 in his previous seven games.
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“I just try to move on to the next day if I have a bad game,” he said, despite continuing to sport career-lows in batting average (.240) and OPS (.710). “If I have a good game, I try and just keep it going. So, I mean, felt like I had good at-bats tonight. And I’ll just try to continue that to tomorrow’s game.”
Yet, Monday’s performance also came with a baserunning mistake, with Tucker getting thrown out at second base –– one at-bat before Teoscar Hernández hit a home run, no less –– while trying to stretch for a double on a line drive off the wall in right field.
“They made a good play,” Tucker said, explaining he was trying to take a chance with the Dodgers facing a three-run deficit in the sixth.
Manager Dave Roberts, however, was more critical.
“It just doesn’t look good when you’re down three,” he said.
On a night full of booing, it was the one time Tucker prompted Wrigley Field to cheer.
