CHICAGO — Kyle Tucker rounded first base, slowed down, grabbed his helmet and chucked it into the infield dirt producing a loud thumping sound that reverberated even through the crowd of 38,971 at Wrigley Field.

Tucker had flown out to left field and the home crowd booed the superstar slugger for the third time on Monday and the second straight day. The weight of his last at-bat in an 0-for-4 day where the Cubs dropped the first game of a pivotal, five-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers had frustrated Tucker enough that he displayed his emotions for all to see.

It’s been a trying six weeks or so for Tucker, who is hitting .189 with a .560 OPS and three extra-base hits since July 1. He’s shown irritation – he chucked his helmet into the dugout after an out last week in Toronto – but Monday, the anger was reciprocated by his home fans audibly.

“Kyle’s frustrated as well,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “The fans are frustrated and Kyle’s frustrated. And it’s unfortunate, because when you make outs, it doesn’t look great, but he’s trying. It’s not clicking.”

The Cubs have kept Tucker near the top of the lineup throughout the season. During this slump, they hoped he could essentially swing his way out of his struggles.

“I think that he’s too good a player for it not to click,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said before Monday’s matinee. “One of these days it’s going to click and he’s going to get hot again, and hopefully it’s a torrid hot streak, like it was in April.

“I think everyone’s seeing the same thing, including him. It’s just a lot of balls on the ground. There’s not a lot of slug and I think that he’ll keep working to get there.”

That hasn’t happened and so the Cubs are hoping time off can help him regain his mojo.

“I think we’re gonna have to take a little step back here, for sure and just give him some days off to reset him hopefully,” Counsell said. “Because he’s frustrated and we’re not coming up with solutions for him, and he’s not coming up with solutions. Sometimes you have to take some steps back to go forward again.”

Counsell said Tucker won’t play in Monday’s nightcap against the Brewers “and then we’ll kind of figure out what’s going on from there.” The Cubs will likely use some combination of Seiya Suzuki and Owen Caissie in right field and in the designated hitter role while Tucker works through his struggles.

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but Counsell and the Cubs have used the time off approach with other hitters to some success in the past.

Last season, the Cubs sat Miguel Amaya while he worked through a swing change where he dropped his leg kick for a toe tap. This year, Matt Shaw had some days off before the All-Star break, opened his stance a bit and became the team’s hottest hitter in the second half, slashing .295/.325/.692 (1.018 OPS) with eight home runs and 17 RBI.

Hoyer and the Cubs think some of Tucker’s struggles might be in that department, too. He suffered a jammed thumb on June 1 against the Cincinnati Reds that may have changed his swing a bit.

“I do think a lot of is mechanical,” Hoyer said. “I think when you look at a swing early in the year versus now, it’s less connected and therefore less powerful.”

The Cubs hope it happens soon so those boos and displays of frustration can disappear soon.

“Kyle’s taking a ton of extra swings,” Hoyer said. “And everyone’s [working on it] – not only conversations with people here, but people he’s been with in the past. It’s hard to get out of a slump sometimes, and hopefully it happens soon.

“I would say there’s definitely some urgency to get out of it, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”