Kyle Tucker receives supportive ovation from Dodger Stadium crowd

He has been the Dodgers’ least-productive, most-disappointing and highest-scrutinized player all season long.He has previously been booed both at home and on the road.He has been criticized, chastised and critiqued endlessly, especially during a career-worst hitless streak recently.But on Friday night, amid what has been the lowest stretch of his dismal debut season with the Dodgers, Kyle Tucker came to the plate in the bottom of the second inning and received the kind of reaction that has evaded him for most of the year.In a pre-planned reception that gained traction on social media the day before, and garnered participation from much of the Chavez Ravine crowd, Dodgers fans offered a prolonged ovation to their $240 million outfielder –– giving him a coordinated show of support they hoped would help Tucker turn his campaign around.“It’s been a struggle, in the sense that I’d like to help our team win and perform better for the guys in the clubhouse and the fans that come to the games,” Tucker said pregame, before grounding out in his sentimental at-bat.“In that aspect, I wish I would’ve done better this year.But like I said, we’ve still got a month and a half left and the playoffs coming up, so it’s not over yet.

Just gotta keep grinding every single day and just keep moving forward and just try to get better every single day.”Indeed, for Tucker, the Dodgers and their fans, there was hope that Friday could represent the turning of a page.During last week’s homestand, Tucker’s already frustrating year reached a new nadir, when he went 0-for-19 to continue his season-long struggles with hitting at Dodger Stadium specifically. Then, things somehow got even worse Monday night in Denver, when Tucker went 0-for-5, dropped a fly ball in right field, and looked despondent on the bench while the team’s television broadcast debated whether he needed some sort of mental “reset.”In the days since, however, Dodgers coaches and players had gon...