The Rangers were dealt a major injury blow today when DH Joc Pederson was hit by a pitch in this evening’s loss to the White Sox. Pederson initially stayed in the game but was later lifted for a pinch-hitter. Manager Bruce Bochy revealed to reporters (including Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News) that Pederson suffered a fracture in his right hand when he was struck by the pitch. Pederson told reporters, including McFarland, that he expects a recovery timeline of six weeks for the injury.
It’s a blow to a Rangers club that has already struggled to stay healthy this year. Pederson will now join Corey Seager and Evan Carter on the shelf from the club’s lineup, in addition to injuries suffered by reliever Chris Martin and starters Kumar Rocker, Jon Gray, and Cody Bradford. Those injuries have contributed to Texas’s struggles this year, as they’ve posted a lackluster 25-28 record that’s left them three games out of a Wild Card spot and five games out of the AL West. With Josh Smith covering for Seager at shortstop and Sam Haggerty holding down center field in place of Carter, the Rangers will likely be forced to get creative with replacing Pederson.
One option could be first baseman Blaine Crim, who failed to record a hit in a five-game cup of coffee earlier this year but sports a .301/.369/.558 slash line in Triple-A this year. Another could be outfielder Dustin Harris, who has a 104 wRC+ in 45 trips to the plate at the big league level and is the club’s only left-handed hitter already on the 40-man roster at Triple-A. Harris could be a particularly attractive option if the Rangers would like to continuing starting backup catcher Kyle Higashioka at DH against left-handed pitchers, a role which the club is already carrying third catcher Tucker Barnhart in order to accommodate on a more regular basis.
Turning back to Pederson, it must be acknowledged that for however much losing his offensive prowess from the lineup may sting on paper he hasn’t delivered much production in his first season with the organization. Signed to a two-year, $37MM guarantee over the winter, Pederson has hit a paltry .132/.266/.240 (51 wRC+) in 144 plate appearances to this point in the season. That’s hardly production a club will miss from their lineup, but it’s unfortunate timing nonetheless giving that Pederson had just begun to look more like his normal self at the plate: he’s hitting .220/.429/.444 with four extra-base hits and an eye-popping 26.5% walk rate over his last 16 games.
The Rangers can only hope that he’ll be able to pick back up right where he left off when he returns to action later this summer. A six week timetable would leave him poised to return in early July, shortly before the All-Star break. Rough as his start to the 2025 campaign was, it goes without saying that Pederson can be a dynamic addition to virtually any lineup when healthy; while he almost exclusively plays against right-handed pitching, the slugger slashed an excellent .262/.365/.485 with a wRC+ of 135 and 61 homers in 387 games over his last three seasons. That’s the 16th-best wRC+ among all hitters with at least 1000 plate appearances in that span, sandwiched between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Jose Ramirez on the leaderboard. If Pederson can offer that sort of production to the Rangers in the second half, it should be easy for fans to forget his first-half struggles and injury woes so long as Texas hasn’t already fallen out of the playoff conversation before he returns.
Major blow? His OPS+ is 48 and he’s batting .132.
You think Joc is cooked? Bad contract?
It was a bad contract before the ink dried
Yeah it was!
He’s been cooked ever since he got exposed for not being able to hit against lefties even if he used a 100 inch bat.
No way Jose Joc will be fine.
873 OPS and 224 ISO the past 16 games… did you not read that?
A whole 16 games? WOW! They should pay him more!
They already agreed on a contract in the offseason, so there’s no way they’ll agree to give him more money.
Not sure about that, but it means that he had a bad start and has demonstrated that he’s turning it around and playing at a level he’s expected to be at. We’re still just in May. Players have bad months all the time.
Would’ve never guessed an aging DH with strikeout issues that used to only be able to hit righties would fall off
League probably figured out how to get him out and he’s not able to make the right adjustments
A guy who’s 262/365/485, 135 wRC+ and a 224 ISO the past 3 seasons is suddenly finished at 33..? Is that the narrative you’re putting fwd?? 1st rate analysis…
@shaq – Not that I agree with the off the cuff “he’s done’ statement either, however the physiological changes that occur in the aging process do kinda’ happen “overnight”.
The general range of time for the first major one is early to mid-thirties. Reflexes and fast twitch tend to remain on the same relative level, and then all of a sudden there is a drop in a rather short period. Then it flatlines again until the next one which tends to be early to mid-forties. This is why we see so many athletes lose peak effectiveness seemingly from one season to the next.
The truly elite athletes can weather the sudden drop as they trend down from superhuman to merely a plus level of production and can still be stars of a lesser magnitude into late 30’s and early forties in certain cases. On the other side of things, there are those that are late bloomers that usually have a short productive burst in their late twenties, but tend to fall away rather quickly after that as they had no cushion to survive the drop. Bat speed; pitch recognition; defensive burst and reaction times all suffer and the player has to learn how to accommodate the loss.
I was thinking the same thing.
Addition by subtraction!
The dude FINALLY gets a two -year deal and then rewards his new team by forgetting how to bat. Not an effective DH!
Platoon DH at that.
Joc is a great teammate and a good human. Hope he heals quick and get back to his old self.
He needs pearls
Nice torpedo bat.
Addition by subtraction, although there was always the hope he’d get on track.
It might actually help his hitting.
Tough break. I guess he’s not getting traded at the deadline.
Traded? Dude making $18.5 per year and hitting .132/.266/.240? While basically a 1B/DH only player at this point. Not likely.
Hypothetically… what if he comes back before the deadline and hits well, and gets traded to the dodgers for Michael conforto in a salary dump
It would be funny for him to be on the dodgers bench again and conforto does not fit with the dodgers
That would be funny if it were even remotely possible. The odds of the Dodgers trading for a LH DH the next ten years are slim to none.
Something tells me it’s a positive to get a .132/.266/.240 slash line out of the lineup.
They’re carrying a 3rd C so Higgy can get DH ab’s? Mind blown.
He’s played like his hand has been fractured this whole time.
When your DH is hitting .132 is it really a “major blow”?
For opposing pitchers looking to lower that ERA…yes.
Bochy coming to the Giants next season.
The pitcher who threw the pitch that resulted in a lost time injury to the batter should be immediately suspended and remain so for the entire time that the batter is unable to perform at the MLB level of play. The antiquated and outdated notion that on one side a defenseless player is needlessly injured and his team is deprived of his performance, while on the other hand both the opposing pitcher and his team suffers ZERO hardship and gets by by saying: “OOPS, Well that’s just part of the game,
S-O-R-R-Y”.
Consequences need to be implemented and enforced! MLB needs to act. Every time a batter is hit by a pitched ball not only is his physical well-being jeopardized but also his career. This in addition to the effect the player’s loss has on the team’s performance and their ability to win games. Too many HBP in MLB !! Just look at some box scores. Why just today there were: 3+2+0+2+0+1+3+1+0+0+2+3+1+1 (2 Games in Process) That’s NINETEEN HBP in just ONE Day’s Worth of Games!!
Unacceptable !!.
MLB did act. They took away sticky substances and didn’t provide an alternative. Now pitchers have less grip/command. Your idea doesn’t make sense. If you banned every pitcher who hit a batter and cause injury you’d have no pitchers
Perhaps if MLB did react in an appropriate and preventative nature there would then be little need to suspend pitchers that cause injury (I stated suspend, not ban).
If required to be suspended for the entire time “the batter is unable to perform at the MLB level of play,” does that mean the pitcher should have been suspended retroactively since the start of the season? That’s how long Joc has not been able to perform at the MLB level of play.
HA-HA but no. Got to suspend the pitcher for as long and beginning with the batter’s lost time injury as a result of a pitched ball. Pitcher comes back from suspension when the player rejoins the opposing team’s major league roster.
Pitchers are allowed to pitch inside. Under your rule, every batter would be hanging over the plate.
Shut the hell up, Jacksson13, my goodness gracious your act is so tired and played out.
There has been HBPs since the 1800’s and we seem to be ok. What if a batter hits the ball and it strikes a fielder and they are injured, does the batter get suspended also? Eye for an eye huh? No. Doesn’t work, is stupid, and doesn’t help anything.
Hitters are wearing all that armor and diving in, then cry when they get a broken hand.
Pitchers are allowed to pitch inside and have to in order to be effective. Know what you are talking about before you spout off.
Back in my day, if you dove in like that, the next pitch would have you on your a$$.
Batters should stop diving out over the plate and take some responsibility.
Kumar? “What kind of name is Kumar anyway? Is it like 5 O’s and 2 Q’s!”
Darn it! He was heading for the more at bats than average record.
The worst part about this from Pederson’s perspective is that that was the hand he uses to eat Big Macs
This is the worst kind of joke: mean-spirited and not even the slightest bit funny.
I bet people love hanging out with you
Best thing that could happen to the Rangers’ lineup. Sorry about the injury however.
Pederson led the NL in getting HBP last year.
“Rough as his start to the 2025 campaign was” is NOT PROPER ENGLISH. You can’t just leave “as” out to begin the sentence. It’s not optional! Grammar is not optional when you’re being paid to write.
Pederson was washed up before he signed a Texas contract this year.