{"id":806297,"date":"2026-09-16T07:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/806297\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T07:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:33:22","slug":"joc-pederson-attempting-to-play-through-hand-fracture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/806297\/","title":{"rendered":"Joc Pederson Attempting To Play Through Hand Fracture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joc Pederson<\/a> has a small fracture in his left hand, reports Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News<\/a>. The Rangers designated hitter will try to play through the injury, but that will be a matter of swelling and pain tolerance.<\/p>\n

Pederson was plunked<\/a> by former teammate Brandon Pfaadt<\/a> with a 93.3 mph fastball on Saturday at Chase Field. He stayed in to run the bases but was lifted for pinch-hitter\u00a0Justin Foscue<\/a> for his next plate appearance. Pederson didn\u2019t play on Sunday and is out of the lineup for tonight\u2019s series opener against the Red Sox. He wouldn\u2019t have started either of those games with the opposing clubs running left-handed starters (Eduardo Rodriguez<\/a> and\u00a0Patrick Sandoval<\/a>, respectively).<\/p>\n

Boston will pitch another lefty, rookie Jake Bennett<\/a>, tomorrow. It\u2019s not until Thursday\u2019s finale \u2014 when the Sox will run\u00a0Sonny Gray<\/a> \u2014 that Texas will want to plug Pederson back into the lineup. They\u2019ll hope the swelling subsides enough that he\u2019s able to hit by then. The catching duo of\u00a0Elias D\u00edaz<\/a> and\u00a0Danny Jansen<\/a> have gotten the start at DH over the last two games.<\/p>\n

Pederson has rebounded from a rough first year in Texas. He\u2019s been the impact platoon bat the Rangers expected when they signed him to a $37.5MM free agent contract. Pederson is tied with Jake Burger<\/a> for the team lead with 26 home runs. All but one of those have come against right-handed pitching, against whom he\u2019s hitting .245\/.338\/.496 in just shy of 400 plate appearances. He has been the team\u2019s biggest bat against righties, which has otherwise been an issue for Texas. They\u2019re 26th in the majors with a .697 OPS.<\/p>\n

Texas enters play Tuesday one game behind the Astros in the American League West. Houston won the season series, so the Rangers will essentially need to make up two games to win the division. They\u2019re 1.5 games behind the Guardians in the Wild Card picture, while Toronto has an additional win with an extra game played. Texas is better positioned from a tiebreaker perspective in the Wild Card race, as they\u2019d hold the edge over anyone besides the AL Central-leading White Sox.<\/p>\n

The Rangers host the Blue Jays in a pivotal series this weekend. They\u2019ll conclude with a home set against the Mets and a trip to Minnesota for three games apiece. Pederson will likely return to free agency this offseason, as his contract contains an $18.5MM mutual option that is expected to be declined by at least one side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joc Pederson has a small fracture in his left hand, reports Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,13],"class_list":["post-806297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-joc-pederson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117279562350131290","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}