TORONTO – On Sunday morning, as he considered the pitching surplus possible for the Toronto Blue Jays in a few weeks if Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios, Shane Bieber and Yimi Garcia all return healthy, pitching coach Pete Walker said he wished for such “great problems to have.”
“It is virtually impossible to go with a five-man rotation all year,” he said. “We came close (in 2016), but that’s unheard of, so we need depth. We have good arms and I try not to look too far ahead. Obviously we have plans for each individual, but there are always adjustments to those plans, things happen here at the major-league level and things seem to work out. But if we have too much pitching, that’s not a bad thing and we’ll make the adjustments where we need to.”
Those words became especially prescient Monday evening when Cody Ponce, 2.1 innings into a promising return to the majors, landed awkwardly while chasing and mishandling Jake McCarthy’s soft chopper to his left and had to be carted off the field.
Ponce told manager John Schneider that he felt his right knee hyperextend on the play and was undergoing an MRI as a messy 14-5 thumping from the Colorado Rockies came to an end. The Blue Jays were anxiously awaiting the results as a possible absence, as well as the spin-off effects on the rest of the pitching staff, loomed large.
“It sucks,” said manager John Schneider. “His first outing, his journey, what he’s been through – hopefully it’s the best news possible (Tuesday).”
Making his first big-league appearance since Oct. 3, 2021, when he gave up four runs in 1.1 innings of relief for Pittsburgh in a 6-3 loss to Cincinnati, Ponce showed why the Blue Jays invested $30 million over three years to sign him over the winter.
Sitting 95.9 m.p.h. with a fastball that he utilized along with his slider, changeup and curveball, he overpowered the Rockies before the injury, getting 15 misses on 29 swings. But he slipped and rolled off the mound for a balk earlier in the at-bat to McCarthy before the fateful chopper, which allowed a Kyle Karros walk to score for a 1-0 Rockies lead.
Ponce tweaked his knee after landing awkwardly on his right leg, possibly as he tried to adjust after mishandling the ball and hopped around for a few steps before dropping to the ground in obvious discomfort.
Surrounded by teammates and training staff, he remained down for an extended period and eventually stood up with some assistance once the medical cart arrived. He buried his face into his arm while being driven off the field, a stunning end to a highly anticipated outing after he worked his way back to North America following three seasons in Japan, plus a brilliant 2025 in Korea, when he set a league record with 252 strikeouts.
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“You feel for us, you feel more for him, the last couple of years, getting back here and he’s throwing the ball really well,” said Schneider. “McCarthy was pretty cool, apologizing just in real time, Cody was talking back to him, so I just told him to focus, one minute at a time. There’s a lot of emotion that goes into today. He was really excited. It just sucks to see that happen to him. Just wishing for the best, really.”
His status now opens a major question for the Blue Jays, with Berrios (slated for a two-up bullpen in Florida on Tuesday and a live batting practice Saturday), Yesavage (three-inning, 45-pitch sim game Friday) and Bieber (off a mound for the first time this year Saturday) all weeks away from returning.
Their depth at triple-A Buffalo is also worryingly thin, with so few traditional starter options that Austin Voth was signed recently to provide rotation innings. Grant Rogers, Chad Dallas, Adam Macko, Lazaro Estrada and Yariel Rodriguez are all bulk options the club can consider if the Ponce injury is as severe as it appears, with Chase Lee, the Blue Jays’ final pitching cut, capable of up to two innings in a relief role.
The Blue Jays could push their rotation over the next three weeks, as they’ll need a fifth starter only once – on April 8 – between now and April 18. But that would also mean pulling extra rest days from their starters, something they’ve done in years past, too, and likely want to avoid.
Either way, some degree of refresh for the pitching staff will be needed after the Rockies chewed up the Blue Jays bullpen so badly that catcher Tyler Heineman had to cover the final two innings, allowing five runs.
“We’re covered for (Tuesday), for sure,” said Schneider. “We’re kind of looking at what we’re going to do going forward in the days after (Tuesday).”
The Blue Jays trailed only 2-1 when the game unravelled in the sixth inning, when Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles, in his third up having already thrown a clean 1.1 innings, surrendered a two-run shot to Troy Johnston in the sixth and walked Jordan Beck. Brendon Little then went strikeout, single, walk, double, double, groundout in what finished as an ugly seven-run frame.
Louis Varland, who allowed an unearned run on an Ernie Clement error in the fourth, Miles and Little are sure to be unavailable Tuesday, while Tyler Rogers, used out of necessity in the seventh, has now pitched in three of four games.
Miles can’t be optioned as a Rule 5 pick, which limits the Blue Jays’ options for a bullpen refresh, and reinforces the challenge of carrying him all season long. As Walker noted Sunday, after Miles’ gutsy debut in the 11th inning of Saturday’s win over the Athletics, “it’s not going to be easy.”
“He’s got an arm I’d love to keep in this organization, and a personality to match,” he continued. “The health of other players, keeping those starters on a little bit of a roll where they’re getting deep into games so we’re not killing our bullpen, is really important because then you’re forced to make moves and we do have some guys that we like a lot that are in that bullpen. We do have optionable arms, of course, but to keep him up here, it’s going to be tricky. He certainly deserves a shot at it and we’re going to do our best to do it.”
One wrong step from Ponce, with starters Berrios, Yesavage and Bieber not yet on the horizon, is all it took to disrupt the stability of the rotation and leave the bullpen in a tenuous spot. A good outing by Max Scherzer on Tuesday can help everyone reset, but the Blue Jays are suddenly facing an immediate need and a gap until their pitching depth, which before Monday, looked like possible surplus, is going to be ready.