Is Kyle Tucker going to return from injury for the Chicago Cubs?

Is Kyle Tucker going to return from injury for the Chicago Cubs?

We talk more about the unknown Kyle Tucker situation and maybe the Cubs will win a game this week. You are Locked on Cubs, your daily Chicago Cubs podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. You are locked on cuz that cold open guy. You are locked on co. I have a cold. Sorry folks. Podcast Network. We’re not going to start over. Your team every day. Alongside Sam Olber. I’m Matt Cozy. Sam and I are lifelong fans taking our passion into discussion with you on all things Cubs. Today’s episode is brought to you by our great partners at FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if that bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today. Well, yeah. Are the Cubs gonna win a game this week? They went 04 uh for the weekend and four game series dating back to Thursday. We will preview the series with the Mets later. Also later, we go around baseball. There’s still a lot of tight races around the game right now. Also, Sam’s owed to Clayton Kershaw. And we do have one trivia question. We start with Kyle Tucker. H the Cubs premier player. He’s been out since September 2nd with a calf strain. He is uh perhaps in the air right now. Craig Council said he was flying back Monday evening to Chicago. That’s right now as we record, he’ll be back at Wrigley Field on Tuesday. And with six games left in the regular season and the Wildcard series starting next week on the 30th, uh there’s a lot of question marks right now. I think it’s fair to say that Kyle Tucker status is unknown. uh it’s questionable. It might even be doubtful. And Craig Councel said over the weekend, it’s a matter of if if he’s going to play, not necessarily when. And I thought that was a possible inflection point to all of this as well. If you’re joining us for the first time, uh first of all, thanks for thank you for for checking us out. Uh, and if you’re not, there may be some redundancy to what we talk about today, but it’s it’s a big story because the Cubs might be without their star player, Sam. And I do want to ask you this to open up. Do you think he plays for the Cubs again this year, either this week or next week? I don’t know. Okay. Uh, I really don’t. Uh, yeah, it’s really an unknown. You know, I said a lot of of what I wanted to say yesterday. Um, you know, about all the the potential things at at play here. What I’ll say now to add to that is that I think tomorrow’s update will be massive. Uh, make it’ll be massive. Pretty close. I mean, I won’t I won’t be on tomorrow’s show, by the way. Want to announce that uh got a a Jewish holiday. I’m observing. Uh but I I really believe like like if you get another hey, we’re just not seeing progress. We’re hoping for the best, but we don’t know. That’s This is a big update tomorrow. It’s a big update. As far as he goes, you know, like I said, I I covered it a lot yesterday. I would just add that this is a tricky situation. Um, and it’s a really big situation for the Cubs and Jed Hoyer because if the answer is no, okay, if he doesn’t ever play in a Cub uniform again and they get eliminated, let’s say, let’s say even if they win the Wildard series without him, because they could still do that. And then let’s say without him, they lose to the Brewers or the Phillies in four, it’s a failure of a trade, right? like you you made that deal to to to go for it to take a swing to either go far or get him back. And let’s be honest, right? The Kyle Tucker experience so far has been a little bumpy, right? I mean, it was that’s No, that’s uh that’s official now. It was It was great early. It It was pretty good all the way up until I don’t know when did he really start to struggle? Was July, right? Yeah, maybe late maybe a glimpse in late June, but really it was Yeah. Fourth of July or so. Yeah. So, like July and August for the most part were really tough. We found out he was playing through an injury. We have no idea who orchestrated that or wanted him to play or didn’t want to play or whatever. We don’t know if there’s any, you know, bad blood there like, “Hey, maybe I should have been playing or hey, I told you so.” Whatever. Then he comes back. It looks like, “Hey, he’s back. He’s back.” then gets hurt again and now we’re in this limbo. And I I just think I if if he doesn’t come back, forget coming back. He needs to come back and have a huge impact. And if he doesn’t, you know, I’m never going to be upset at taking a swing that like the Cubs did. But, you know, it would be a swing and a foul ball. Let’s put it like that. Yeah. Well, we’ve always I don’t think we’re moving the goalpost here because the goal by trading him was to either extend him, which they still could still could, you know, resign him this off season, but the result for for on the field if especially if it was one and done was we’ve always said final four, right? NLCS, NLCS, NLCS. So, I don’t think that’s changed and what we’re saying doesn’t doesn’t change that at all. What really stinks about this in terms of just the the uh practical part of it is for how bad he was and probably because he did jam his finger on June 1st. Even though it took him a while, it took a long time for that to affect his play. Right. But from the start of the Angel series to September 2nd, he was outstanding again. So that that’s the the the big disappointment for me is yeah, you know what? It w it was bumpy because we can’t officially say that now. And if he finishes with 133 games on his baseball card with the Cubs after just 70 plus last year, you know, that that’s going to make for an interesting off season for him. But he was playing well. He was back. He hit a home run his last game oppo for the first time. And so that that part is uh it’s just extremely unfortunate because I I do believe he was back. He was uh one of the top five players in in the NL in baseball uh the first 60 games or so. And um yeah, this is big. This is big. I do think it affects his his free agent market, even if it’s just slight. uh whether that’s suitors, whether that’s dollars and cents, whether that’s years. Uh but there’s just so many implications here. And while I do understand him thinking about himself both in terms of the calf strain becoming something larger and or this December uh it it’s still a would be still an unhappy ending and uh for the cost that you gave up celebrated at the time it would uh would end with a quite a thought. Yeah. And I mean, it’s it’s one of those things where, you know, you you you take a big swing. Uh you you you go for it. And I’m not mad at the trade, but but there is a lot that needs to work out. And the team right now is performing for the most part. They’re the one missing piece is is a superstar right now. They need him. That’s that’s the thing. Like you’ve gotten Nico, you’ve gotten Ian, you’ve gotten Dansby. So, you know, those guys have performed. I if you get that that late March, April Kyle Tucker, this team is extremely dangerous. And I think Matt, that’s why it’s so frustrating what’s happening right now because this just isn’t a good enough team without him. Yeah, it’s Well, it’s back to to square one. All the convos that we’ve had before the trade, right? the uh basically the same thing. All right, we’ll wait for that update on Tuesday at Wrigley as the clubhouse opens. I I guess that would be about 3:30 Central and we know he’s not playing Tuesday, but uh man, I think Friday to me would be a target date, you know, if he got innings in before uh the wild card next week. All right, that series tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday is Cubs Mets. We preview that right after this. This episode is brought to you by Neutrifull. You’ve probably seen a million ads for hair growth products and thought, “Sure, like that actually works.” There are so many products out there and it’s hard to know which ones are actually going to do anything. That’s why you should give Neutrifull a closer look. Neutrifall is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over 1 and a half million people. And it’s not just hype. This is a supplement clinically tested that targets the root causes of thinning and shedding with a proactive approach. 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Uh so 6:40 Tuesday, Marquee and TBS, though I wasn’t able to confirm if if TBS would be blacked out locally. Usually it is. uh 7:05 Wednesday because the games exclusively on ESPN and then uh 6:40 on on Marquee per usual on Thursday. So, three night games here. Mets are in a freef fall. We’re going to get to more of them later. Uh this more about the Cubs now. Horton Peterson, Boyd Tong, Imminaga McClean, and Sam, it looks like to me, you know, the Cubs lining up, these three dudes are are giving themselves options uh for next week with any of the three, but Horton lining up for game one next week against the Padres’s looks likelier and likelier. And uh just if this is his last regular season start, which it would be, um hoping to see the Cubs roll through the Mets on on Tuesday, you know, facing a lefty and Peterson, but I think you got to get this one. I think you have to look at this like a playoff series if you’re the Cubs. Like a tuneup. I think this is your tuneup, right? These are the last three real games. Well, well, assuming you do your job, right? Well, and a little bit of scoreboard watching the Padres’s. The Mets, first of all, these are playoff games for the Mets. They have to win all of them. Yeah. Right. So, the the the opponent you’re playing is in do or die mode. You have your three dudes lined up that you’re going to have lined up next week at this time or or you know, Tuesday. This is you got to go. If I’m council, hey, we’re treating this like the playoffs. You know what? you should may maybe not as much like you know don’t don’t go crazy with relievers but mindset wise mindset wise uh you know it’s it’s bad luck for the Mets because the Cubs you know if it was flipped the Mets would have probably swept the Cubs this weekend and the Cubs would play the Reds and play it like a playoff series but that’s just how it goes. It’s not the Cubs responsibility to to worry about other teams and uh that that that’s how I look at this. Cade, Boyd, Shota, play that that very well might be the playoff lineup right there. Y uh you’re playing a team that’s in must-win mode. Show us your best. Show us your best. If they get swept, we got a serious problem. Oh man. Yeah, that would be uh nine that’d be seven losses in a row. Yeah, that would be that would be major. Uh yeah, I so I I do think the Friday game against the Cardinals could be the last like real game, right? But we’ll just see how how the week goes. So major storylines this week, Tucker, we talked about Daniel Palencia, which I want to ask you about in a minute, but the major storyline for me this week, obviously the win loss result for the team, but is the sharpness of Boyd and Iaga. Yep. Are these guys going to show anything this week? Because they haven’t the last five starts. Imanaga a little more than Boyd. But I don’t care that I gotten quality starts, man. 10 homers in five starts, right? Fourth most homers in baseball for the year. 10 in the last five starts. He’s given up a homer like every three innings. the the devil’s advocate cynic in me would just say with Shota the only case I’d say is he always pitches pretty well after a blowup start. So if he had like a real if he was going to be bad just be awful on Thursday because then he that he would pitch well next week. But I in between Yeah, I’m with you. I’d like to just see him be sharp. Especially Boyd. Boyd’s the key guy. Like if Boyd has another bad one, that would be really concerning. Uh but yeah, be deflated, I think. Yeah, this is, you know, this is a good Mets team that’s playing really poorly. Juan Sodto, remember the comparisons about him verse Tucker? He’s having a a way bigger year. Uh not even close. Lindor, Alonszo, like this is this is a really established group of guys that had a deep run last year that is playing for their playoff lives. So, you’re going to get their best shot. So, if you win this series, that’s that’s something, you know, that’s something to hang your hat on. That’s something to like I’ll put it to you like this. I’ll put it to you like this. Let me put it to you like this. I would rate this series with the Mets desperation about a a little bit easier, just a little bit easier than a Padre series would be. It’s It’s easier, but it’s not totally different. It’s a It’s a similar type series. It really, really is. Now, the Cubs don’t have the same desperation, so you have to take that in hand, but I don’t think it’s crazy to say you’re going to get the Mets best shot with some of their best arms and their great players. It’s it’s not as hard. It’s not going to be as challenging as the the the Padres’s, but it’s not it’s not going to be like playing the Cardinals over the weekend. No, it’s it’s or the Pirates last week, right? Exactly. It’s really really close. Really close. I I still think the Mets one, two, three. I mean, it ranks it’s in the team photo in the whole sport. Yep. When you go Lindor, stood Alonzo. I mean, come on. And how far has Horton come? Remember, he made his debut against the Mets and Council would let him face those guys in the beginning. I know. There was an opener. Y wasn’t the opener that day like Keller, man. That was weird. Might be right. Yeah, he ended up being a just a giant Keller and Impact Keller maybe Pomerance or a lefty. I don’t know who it was. I can look it up. Is that my trivia today? No. Yeah. I I really like this series for the Cubs. I think they could show a lot of encouraging signs offensively. Sam, I do want to see a sign from Matt Shaw. Yeah, because I feel like the NP But the rest of the lineup, they’re I’m I’m confident there. Great calls, Keller. Yeah. Right. Wait. Well, you’re not confident about Seiya right now, are you? Oh, that’s right. Dang it. Uh, no, I’m not. Like to see him hit a home run off David Peterson tomorrow. Yeah, it’s a good call. That’d be really nice to see. Say and Pete are the two guys you’re watching. You’re looking for signs. You’re looking for encouragement. You’re looking for anything. Daniel Palencia is eligible to be activated from the IIL on Wednesday. If that happens, that’s a major story because when he walked off the field against the Nationals, uh whether he damaged his shoulder or his pride or both, I didn’t expect him to return. And uh so if he does, where does he fit this week? Where does he fit next week? Um, so that’s something to keep track of. And is Billy Hamilton going to appear in this series or next one? Uh, if they want to give that a test drive at the the major league level, if he’s really going to pinch run against the Padres’s, he should at least pinch run against the Cardinals. But in a more playoff atmosphere, it really would be one of these three games against the Mets. So, I’m keeping that in the back of my mind as well. I don’t disagree with any of that. All right, coming up next, we have so many hot races around baseball right now. We’ll lay those out for you. Sam’s owed to Clayton Kershaw and one one trivia question. Stay tuned. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is here. Believe it or not, we’re already almost to week four, and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’t miss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Folks, uh, my Alii played on Saturday night in Bloomington, Indiana, and they lost by a score of 186- 10. Uh, their secondary is dismantled and out. It looks like a preseason ranking was a little bit too generous and and there could be big problems. Maybe eight wins is a tremendous season with the way it’s looking like uh over in Champagne, Urbana. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. Make sure you’re subscribed to Locked On Cubs. That way you don’t miss any of the great Cubs content we’ve got for you. That includes the Cubs post cast with Joe George live after the final out of every game. All right, we start the American League right here as we go around baseball. Tigers are up one on the Guardians in the AL Central. Wow. The Guardians have won nine of their last 10. Tigers losers of their last six. On September 11th, the Tigers were up nine games. Oh my word. And it gets better. The Blue Jays are up two on the Yankees. Both of those teams are safe. That’s for the AL East. Mariners up three on the Astros. Mariners are probably safe. But the Astros, Tigers, Guardians, and Red Sox are in this one basically this one game clump. Wow. And so the Tigers might go from a World Series an AL pennent favorite on se basically through September 11th to by this Sunday the LA game 162 out of the playoffs. They were never my favorite. Yeah. Uh but it is wild. But if they miss the playoffs, that’s just humongous. Historic. The Guardians are on historic 1960 1969 Cubs like Oh gosh. Okay. Uh, safe to say I’ll, you know, we’ll be watching a lot of baseball this week. Well, and remember when Cleveland, this is a great lesson. Remember when Cleveland came first week of July limping in here in July? It was a relatively easy sweep for the boys in blue. What did that take Cleveland like nine 10 losses in a row at the time or something like that? Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. know there’s 162 and you never know. Uh I think the best team in the American League is the Yankees. Uh but I just because they’re going to be playing in a wild card series. You just never know. I also really like Boston if they could get in. Well, and Red Sox Yankees next week would be would be a great theater as well. And do you feel like regardless the Yankees will get the 607 slot uh even if they don’t play the Red Sox? I do. Yes. I think, you know, one of the biggest franchise on the planet. Yeah. And that’s probably fair. Uh, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Talking playoff times. Hey, after the Guardians left Wrigley that week, Sam, uh, they went 44 and 27. Wow. Jose Ramirez, I I really haven’t been keeping up with a ton of American League. Uh, so I I I gotta because my fantasy baseball season’s just been a total disaster. Uh, let’s see. How’s my guy How’s my guy Jose Ramirez doing? Yeah, pretty typical. Pretty typical. All right, let’s move over to the National League then. Brewers and Phillies have wrapped up the top spots in the Central and East. Uh the Padres’s have an outside shot at the NL West. Sam Dodgers up three games. No, they don’t. Okay. Uh Cubs up three on the Padres’s for home field advantage. Padres’s up five on the Reds who have won five in a row and currently have the third spot after they were out like what six games out like 10 days ago or so. The Mets are collapsing currently with the same record as the Reds but losing the tiebreaker. The Diamondbacks are only one game behind but the Reds folks shout out to Jeff Carr are in the driver’s seat. the Reds own tiebreakers over both the Mets and Diamondbacks. And the Reds are also about to play the Pirates three times. So, I think the Reds are going to make the playoffs. And then there’s a there’s a a And for the Cubs sake, uh I believe the Yeah, the Brewers are three up out of Philly uh for the top spot. You want Milwaukee as the top spot. Cubs. I’ll tell you this right now. The Cubs are not the Cubs are not going into Philly and winning a best out of five and Becker really just that’s just a bad matchup. I just don’t see it. Uh a tough matchup. But yeah, it’s interesting what you said about the Dodgers. They do have to go to Arizona and to Seattle to finish out their year. Uh I just don’t see the Padres’s close the Padres’s play the Brewers three times. Uh, you know, I I I with the way they’re playing, I mean, the Padres’s would have to make up three games, the Padres’s would have to go six and0 basically. Uh, speaking of the Dodgers, Sam, Clayton Kershaw is retiring after the year. I know you’ve enjoyed watching him pitch all these years. Yeah, my favorite non-cub pitcher, uh, best best pitcher. Wow. All time. Yeah. Well, you know, I haven’t been around that long. I wasn’t around to see I wasn’t around to see Kofax. Uh, I wasn’t around to see Nolan Ryan or Siver or Carlton. And I was too young for Pedro at his peak. Uh, okay. Too young for Randy Johnson at his peak. You know, don’t age me. Uh, look, I think Kershaw’s the best pitcher of the generation. Let me tell you what I love so much about him. Uh, he’s been out of his prime for like, I don’t know, seven years. And when you still look at the ERA leaders of the last six, seven years, he’s still at the top of the list. Uh, constantly constantly reinvented himself, constantly battled. And let me tell you what I love about him. This will surprise people. Yes, the mark on his legacy is he struggled in the postseason. And there’s no way around it. But what I love about him and this was Clayton Kershaw is a great lesson for podcasters and for media because I guarantee you just watching him pitch the way I have my whole life uh or or at least since since he made his debut when I think he debuted when I was in eighth grade. It was not because the moment was too big. He’s not that type of guy. This is a grinder, a bulldog. It just is something in life that just didn’t work out for whatever reason and he never made any excuses about it. He never shied away from it. He just kept pitching. And I obviously am not rooting for the Dodgers in a postseason, but I’d love to see Clayton Kershaw have a great playoff moment or whatever. Uh because I I do think when you look at the numbers and you watch him like I did, I I do think he’s a tier above the Verlanders or the Sherzers in the world. Uh, and his 2014 season was the greatest pitching season I ever saw. Okay. Where he won the he won the MVP of the league. By the way, Seya needs one more run batted in to get 50 at home. I believe his last time he got a run batted in was fourth of July. But who was the last Cubs player to drive in 50 runs at home in a single campaign? I mean, it’s the same group of guys. Yeah, it is. We talked about it recently. Uh 50 and I mean see like this Rizzo. That’s correct. That’s the show. Yeah. I mean it’s Rizzo. You one nugget though. I have to tell it Lee. Could it be Sosa? Can I tell you the record for Banks? Do you want to go for the record? The record though for runs batted in a single season by a Cub at home? Yeah. Well, I guess it would be the year that Sosa drove in 166. Well, it’s a good guess, but except you forgot 1930 when Hack Wilson drove in 191 and Hack Wilson drove in 116 at Rickley. By the way, I just misspoke. So, I believe Sosa drove in 158 in 98. It was 164 in 01. But yeah, shout out to Hack Wilson. That’s a lot of RBI’s. Yeah, it is. No, I’m not gonna even I mean I mean I I probably could have, you know, I could have known that, but I didn’t. This is locked down Cubs. L Gar in the 20s and 30s was driving in like 190 runs every year. Wow. I don’t think I knew that. Uh your team every day for your second listen. Check out the allnew Locked on MLP game night. Every game, every night, all season long. Get local analysis on exaggerated. Find MLB game night on the lockown MLB channel on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. All right, fun show as always. We’ll be back after Cubs Mets all week long. He’s Sam Olber. I’m Matt Cozy. This is Locked on Cubs. Shout out to Matt Cozy and Sam Olber, host of my favorite podcast, Locked on Cubs.

Kyle Tucker might not return this season for the Cubs. We explore the impact of Tucker’s absence on the playoffs as well as his free agent market this offseason. Plus: Cubs/Mets preview and much more.

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