The Most Important Moment of Game 4 Might Have Been Kyle Tucker's Hint at Game 5 Glory

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman-USA TODAY Network v

Don't look now, but it appears the Chicago Cubs are capable of scoring beyond the first inning of a baseball game. After scattering their three runs through the game (solo home runs like burps all night after a garlicky dinner) in Game 1, the Cubs did all of their scoring in the first innings of Games 2 and 3. The fourth game of their NLDS matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers, though, saw the Cubs score across the final three innings after a first-inning bombardment.

After a few games of woes between the second and ninth innings, some crucial signs of life began to emerge for the Cubs in Game 4. Those developments could make the difference between the frustration of the series' first two games and something more akin to what we saw in Game 4, when they lay their season on the line on Saturday night. No sign, however, is more important than what we've begun to see from Kyle Tucker. 

Tucker's second half of the season wasn't what you wanted to see, for a team that squandered a lead in the National League Central and limped their way into the Wild Card round. Slowed by a hand fracture and a calf injury, Tucker batted just .231/.360/.378 after the All-Star break, for a good-not-great, OBP-driven wRC+ of 115. Those numbers fell well off his .280/.384/.499 and 145 wRC+ pace in the first half. You'll note, however, that Tucker—even amid such health-driven struggles to produce—continued to reach base and remained an above average hitter. The approach remained intact, with Tucker simply lacking the health to make it matter.

Given that, it was unclear what the Cubs would get out of Tucker heading into the postseason. He was activated ahead of their September 26 contest and appeared as a designated hitter for three games to close out the regular season. Therein, however, he notched just one hit in a dozen plate appearances, with one walk. He looked a bit better in the Wild Card Series, going 3-for-11, and our Matt Trueblood predicted that we would see him complete a turn of the corner during the Division Series, based on the trends in his swing metrics that showed up against San Diego.

That hoped-for spike in production didn't manifest in Game 1, when Tucker went 0-for-3 with a walk and was only able to muster an average exit velocity of 86.9 MPH. Game 2 didn't offer much room for optimism, either. Tucker, again, went 0-for-3 with a walk, and the contact quality was still lackluster. He put only two balls in play across those four plate appearances: a 72.9-MPH grounder off a fastball, and a 64.1-MPH popout on a curveball. That Tucker averaged 94.5 MPH against fastballs during the regular season speaks to the gap that remained. As such, considering where things stood results-wise, it was really difficult to drum up optimism around the Cubs' most important bat heading into the elimination games. Happily, that's where we've started to see a shift. 

Tucker was 2-for-3 with a walk in Game 3. The most important component of that game was in the velocity trends. After a walk in his first plate appearance, he went 100.1 MPH on a groundout, 100.2 MPH on a single, and 89.4 MPH on another single. It was a 96.6 MPH average exit velocity on a trio of balls in play, including a 100.2 MPH average against fastballs. It was the kind of trend you needed to see ahead of Thursday's game. 

The fourth game of the series was where Tucker was, finally, able to make his presence known, for (really) the first time since the end of August, when he homered thrice in two games in Anaheim. In Thursday's tussle, Tucker turned in another 2-for-3 night, with a seventh-inning homer that was mashed and another two walks. His 107.5 MPH on the homer trailed only Michael Busch's 108.1 on his eighth-inning blast. All of Tucker's balls in play came on fastballs, averaging 97.3 MPH; the lowest exit velocity he produced was 90.3. 

The last two games have helped Tucker run his stat line in this series up to the following: .333/.529/.583; a 5.9% strikeout rate, a 29.4% walk rate, and a wRC+ of 215 in 17 plate appearances. It's obviously only four games, but the balance there is important. We've seen Tucker prop up his overall production while physically compromised, on the strength of the patience within his approach. But for the first time since dealing with his various injuries in the second half, he's starting to turn that patience and plate coverage into exit velocity. 

It's nearly impossible to overstate the value of such a development. On its own, you have Tucker returning to form as one of the most dangerous hitters in Major League Baseball, ahead of the single most important game of the 2025 season. To understand why that matters, remember: the first-half version of Tucker had a sort of trickle-down effect on the rest of the Cubs lineup, where his patience and subsequent output were (somewhat unquantifiably) leading a number of teammates to follow suit. If the Cubs are about to get a returned-to-form Tucker and the extra pop that comes with it, there is suddenly much more reason to believe they can hang around in a decisive Game 5.

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[Victor Reichman]

I said at the onset of the season, that the Bellinger dump (+$,000) to Yanks was a mistake to get Bellinger who is a good, but not a great player. I opined that there wasn't much difference. Actually Belli outperformed Tucker by a little. And we gave up 3 players whom we could have used for trade bait. Here are the Stats:

Tucker 4.5 WAR, 136 G, 597 PA, 133 H, 22 HR, 73 RBI, 25 SB, .266 BA, .377 OBP, .464 Slug, .841 OPS

Belli,    5..0 War, 152 G, 656 PA  160 H, 29 HR, 90 RBI, 13 SB, .272 BA,  .334 OBP, .480 Slug .813 OPS

I wouldn't resign Tucker or Belli. Both represented by Boras. No long term deals wanted for either. I would sign PCA to a long time deal. His hitting collapsed in 2nd 1/2, but he is a centerpiece (pun intended) for the future.