Pirates' Cole Tucker makes the switch, decides to bat only from left side

Cole Tucker had a ready, logical and honest explanation Tuesday for his decision to stop switch-hitting and concentrate on batting from the left side.

“I’m tired of getting the bat shoved up my butt right-handed, bluntly,” he said before the Pittsburgh Pirates game Tuesday against the Los Angeles Dodgers at PNC Park.

Tucker, the Pirates’ first-round draft choice in 2014, said he believes he has been switch-hitting almost exclusively since he was about 14 or 15 years old. Today, he’s almost 26.

Cole Tucker, no longer a switch hitter. pic.twitter.com/LZV2Djqb5f

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) May 10, 2022

“I just want to give myself the best chance I can to succeed,” he said “and right now I feel like that is left-handed. The game will tell me and show me if that’s right or wrong. I just want to go give it a shot.”

When batting right-handed against left-handed pitchers, Tucker has a career major-league slash line of .192/.260/.275, with 41 strikeouts in 131 plate appearances. This season, he batted right-handed 11 times against left-handers, with one hit (an RBI single) and six strikeouts.

Tucker made the switch Monday night and was 0 for 2 against Dodgers left-handers Julio Urias, a 20-game winner last season, and Robbie Erlin. He struck out against Urias while pinch-hitting for Jake Marisnick and grounded out to second base in his second at-bat.

Manager Derek Shelton admitted pinch-hitting against one of the game’s best left-handers wasn’t the ideal moment to try something new.

“So, 100% I’ll take the hit on that,” Shelton said. “On the flip side, we weren’t going to burn two players there, because he was going to play defense with Marisnick (injured), and with Bryan (Reynolds) playing the DH.

“That’s what I told him afterward, just, ‘Hey, man, I know that’s not the best situation to do it in, and I appreciate your willingness to stand in there and do it.’

“Obviously it’s going to be challenging, and (Monday) was a challenging situation. I thought he took some pretty good swings. He fouled two balls straight back, and it’s going to be a work in progress, but something I’m pretty confident he’s going to work hard on.”

Tucker took an overall batting average of .169 into the game Tuesday against Dodgers right-handed starter Tony Gonsolin. He batted ninth and collected one hit in four at-bats.

“I feel good, and I feel stable behind the ball left-handed,” Tucker said. “So, I just want to see what it’s about. It doesn’t have to be as forever thing, but I definitely want to give it a go and see.

“I could go back if I don’t feel like it’s working. I’m not married to either one, but I feel like I have a really good shot left-handed right now to have a better chance than I did right-handed.”

Tucker said he started switch-hitting in high school as a way to emulate big-league switch-hitters Chipper Jones and Jose Reyes.

“It feels like baseball was more conducive for switch-hitting (in previous seasons) than it is now with all the matchups and the analytics and how the game has changed,” he said. “It feels like unless you’re a freak like Carlos Beltran and you can just roll and rake out of both sides, it’s harder to do in today’s game.

“The game was kind of showing me that might be the right decision.”