Kyle Tuckers grand slam offers reason for hope as Dodgers extend win streak

MIAMI –– Time will tell if Kyle Tucker is truly heating up.But for now, at the very least, he seems to finally be starting to thaw out.After being stuck in a deep freeze at the plate for much of the last month, Tucker produced an offensive outburst in his second-straight game to lift the Dodgers to a 6-2 win over the Miami Marlins on Friday night, finishing a double shy of the cycle –– in addition to hitting a grand slam –– to help lift the team to its eighth-straight win.It started with a single in the first inning, allowing Tucker to pick up where he left off after a three-hit performance on Wednesday.He then opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the third, giving Blake Snell a lead he wouldn’t relinquish in a 5 ⅔-inning, one-run start.In the top of the sixth, Tucker took another confident hack, squaring up a hanging first-pitch slider for a triple off the wall in right.

He would later score on a bloop single from Will Smith.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story And for a finale, his breakout night culminated with the bases loaded an inning later, setting up Tucker for a grand-slam swing –– on a 395-foot drive that landed in the right-field bullpen –– that punctuated perhaps a season-best performance from the previously slumping slugger.The kind of much-needed sign of life the team had been waiting for.Up until the last few days, criticism had been reaching a tipping point with the team’s $240 million flop of an offseason signing.He had gone from bad to worse during a slump through much of August and September, taking an already disappointing debut season to even more confounding lows by batting .116 over his previous 26 games.But then came Wednesday, when Tucker had three hits, two runs scored, a double and, technically, a home run...