Toronto\u00a0Blue Jays pitcher Cody Ponce will miss \u201csome significant time\u201d as he recovers from a sprained knee.<\/p>\n
Manager John Schneider said Tuesday that an MRI the night before revealed Ponce had sprained his anterior cruciate ligament, but the Blue Jays will have more doctors examine the imaging before creating a rehabilitation plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to him for a while last night, up until like 1 a.m.,\u201d said Schneider in his office during a pre-game meeting with reporters. \u201cHe\u2019s got a pretty good perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s frustrated, for sure, but I think he has pretty good perspective on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ponce was carted off the field in the third inning of Toronto\u2019s 14-5 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Monday. He was chasing down a ground ball by Rockies centre-fielder Jake McCarthy when his knee buckled, and he rolled to the ground in obvious pain.<\/p>\n
It was Ponce\u2019s regular-season debut for the Blue Jays after signing a three-year, US$30-million deal with\u00a0Toronto\u00a0on Dec. 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe person in me just hates it for him, first outing, weird play, all that kind of stuff,\u201d said Schneider, noting that Ponce and his brother-in-law, San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle, were in high spirits hanging out in Toronto\u2019s clubhouse earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s handling it OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ponce was placed on the 15-day injured list later Tuesday with fellow right-handed pitcher Lazaro Estrada recalled from triple-A Buffalo in a corresponding move.<\/p>\n
Ponce played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2020 and 2021, appearing in a total of 20 games with a 1-7 record and a 5.86 earned-run average. He had 48 strikeouts over a total of 55 1\/3 innings pitched.<\/p>\n
He then moved to Japan and South Korea, improving his pitching and developing a kick change-up.<\/p>\n
Ponce was 17-1 over 29 starts with Hanwha in 2025, with a 1.89 ERA and 252 strikeouts to earn the KBO\u2019s most valuable player award.<\/p>\n
Scheider said that Ponce\u2019s recovery plan will be dictated by what a closer examination of the MRI reveals.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if it\u2019s just a sprain, I think it is, it\u2019s still a pretty significant rehab process,\u201d said Schneider, noting that if it is a sprain, it won\u2019t require surgery. \u201cA rest and rehab process and see if you can get something done, whether it\u2019s an injection or something, but we\u2019ll cross that bridge when we get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ponce joined four other starting pitchers on Toronto\u2019s IL.<\/p>\n
Shane Bieber (forearm fatigue), Jose Berrios (stress fracture, right elbow) and Trey Yesavage (right shoulder impingement) are all expected to return this season. Bowden Francis (Tommy John surgery) won\u2019t pitch in 2026 and will likely miss the start of the 2027 season.<\/p>\n
Surefire Hall of Famer Max Scherzer was scheduled to pitch against the Rockies on Tuesday night, with Kevin Gausman \u2014 the first pitcher in the Blue Jays rotation \u2014 pencilled in for Wednesday\u2019s series finale. Dylan Cease takes the mound on Thursday in Chicago against the White Sox.<\/p>\n
Friday is an off-day, meaning Ponce\u2019s spot in the rotation will fall on Sunday\u2019s matinee on the road in Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to bump up anyone (in the rotation) with the off day coming up. I think we\u2019re going to keep them as regularly scheduled,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to use our depth; we\u2019ll have to use whoever can offer length.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s one, two times through (the rotation), we do have three other guys kind of getting close, in (Bieber, Berrios, and Yesavage.) I think it\u2019ll be a variety of things, really, to kind of cover that hole until one of those guys is ready to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Estrada appeared in two games for\u00a0Toronto\u00a0last season, giving up seven runs on 10 hits and striking out 10 over 7 1\/3 innings pitched. He has a 16-25 record across all levels of the minor leagues with a 3.82 ERA and 504 strikeouts over 431 2\/3 innings pitched in eight seasons.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2026.<\/p>\n
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto\u00a0Blue Jays pitcher Cody Ponce will miss \u201csome significant time\u201d as he recovers from a sprained knee. Manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,82,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-574813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}