Another day, another ejection. Chris Guccione had gone all season without tossing anyone, then finally found his first in the second inning. It was already the Rangers’ fourth ejection of 2026, and Joc Pederson made sure everyone knew he hated the call.

Joc Pederson proved he did not even need to step onto the field to get himself ejected. In the second inning, Chris Guccione suddenly stopped Evan Carter’s at-bat, walked straight toward the Rangers’ dugout, and tossed Pederson almost immediately. The exchange barely lasted, but the frustration had been building since Pederson’s previous at-bat, when Guccione denied his ABS challenge. By the time the umpire turned toward the dugout, Pederson had clearly said enough.

“Joc Pederson was not happy with the home plate umpire after he was not granted an ABS challenge as the umpire thought he challenged too late,” wrote the @js9inningsmedia’s X handle. “Pederson checked the replay and started saying from the dugout that the pitch was low. He continued to argue, and the umpire ejected him from the game.”

“That’s low, b****. F****** b****,” Pederson said before getting ejected, and it was caught on camera.

Well, Texas did not waste time making Chicago look uncomfortable.

Joc Pederson opened the game with a walk, Ezequiel Duran cashed him in on a groundout, and Evan Carter doubled home another run to make it 2-0 before the White Sox had even settled in. Chicago nearly punched back with a two-run shot from Andrew Benintendi, but Brandon Nimmo erased it at the wall.

The second inning is where the game stopped being routine and turned ugly. Pederson opened it by taking strike three, tried to challenge the call, and was shut down by Chris Guccione for being too late.

Texas still kept the pressure on, loading the bases before Ezequiel Duran punched home another run to make it 3-0. Pederson, meanwhile, kept chirping from the dugout until Guccione finally had enough and tossed him before Evan Carter ended the inning with a groundout. Chicago answered with Tristan Peters’ two-run homer in the bottom half, but by then the inning had already been defined by the ABS dispute and Pederson’s ejection.

Under the ABS System, each team gets two challenges and players have just two seconds to request one without help from teammates or coaches.

Pederson appeared to hesitate for a split second before tapping his helmet, which likely led Guccione to reject the challenge, even though three other challenges were allowed later in the same inning.

Texas never really gave Chicago a way back after the second inning.

Corey Seager delivered a two-out, two-run double in the third to stretch the lead to 5-2, and although both teams went scoreless in the fourth, that was about as close as the White Sox got to slowing the game down.

Jake Burger made sure Chicago’s brief hope did not last, crushing his 22nd homer in the fifth to make it 6-2.

Then Justin Foscue, the man who replaced the ejected Joc Pederson, doubled with two outs before Corey Seager drove him home with another double. Just like that, Texas had turned the game into a 7-2 beatdown, and Chicago was already running out of answers.

Burger struck again in the sixth with an RBI double to push the lead to 8-2, while the seventh passed without a run as Texas remained firmly in control.

In the eighth, Ezequiel Duran came home on a wild pitch to make it 9-2, and Wyatt Langford finished the beating in the ninth with his 15th homer of the season, a two-run shot off Trevor Richards that completed the Rangers’ 11-2 rout.

Texas’ ejections are starting to look less like isolated blowups and more like a season-long fight with the strike zone.

Luis Urueta was the first to go after arguing a check-swing call, then Justin Viele and Skip Schumaker were both tossed in Houston after Nicky Lopez was rung up on a called third strike with the Rangers already out of ABS challenges.

Different games, different umpires, same ugly pattern. Texas keeps finding itself on the wrong side of controversial calls, and at this point, the Rangers seem just as fed up with the umpires as they are with the results.

Pederson is currently navigating a rough patch offensively. His frustration with his struggles at the plate tipped over on Monday.

Joc Pederson’s hitless streak continued on Monday

Pederson’s slump has gone from bad to brutal. He entered Monday riding an 0-for-23 skid and then struck out in his only official at-bat, pushing the drought even further. The timing could not be much worse either.

Pederson is playing out the final year of his two-year, $37 million deal with Texas and is headed for free agency after the season, so every empty trip to the plate only makes the situation uglier.

Even Pederson admitted the hitless stretch has become frustrating.

It’s frustrating,” said Pederson, per The Dallas Morning News. “I feel like I’ve seen the ball better the last couple of games. But it’s not very fun.”

Pederson has now found himself twice in the middle of a hitless streak during his time with the Rangers. He went 0-for-41 in 2025.

Pederson is trying to hit his way out of a brutal slump, but Texas is not exactly giving him much room to breathe.

His struggles against lefties have been especially ugly, with a .138/.242/.414 slash line, one homer and three RBIs in 29 games, which has pushed the Rangers to keep him out of the lineup against southpaws. The result is a veteran searching for timing while his opportunities keep shrinking.

Pederson has appeared in 120 games this season, but he made just 13 starts through the first 22 games of August after starting at least 21 games in each of the first three months. For a hitter already fighting his swing, being turned into a part-time option only makes the hole tougher to climb out of.

“When you’re a platoon guy, you don’t get your timing every single day,” manager Skip Schumaker said, per The Dallas Morning News. “But he’s been really good off the bench throughout his career, too, so I think he’ll get going soon, sooner rather than later because he’s done it his whole career.”

The Rangers are scheduled to face more southpaw starters as they face the Milwaukee Brewers next.

So, Pederson will likely not get more playing time anytime soon. He has to figure to out how to get out of the slump while playing sparingly. Pederson is currently batting .234 with 22 homers and 46 RBI in 120 games.