9:36pm: Ponce goes for an MRI tonight, supervisor John Schneider stated postgame (relayed by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet).
8:20pm: Blue Jays starter Cody Ponce left tonight’s season debut on a cart within the third inning. The group has solely introduced the harm as proper knee discomfort.
Ponce stumbled whereas making an attempt to discipline a chopper off the bat of Rockies heart fielder Jake McCarthy (video offered by Shi Davidi of Sportsnet). The massive righty was unable to discipline the ball cleanly, then tried stopping abruptly to choose it up. He tweaked his proper leg, took a number of extra steps, then went down on the grime just a little to the left of first base.
After spending a while on the bottom in clear discomfort, Ponce was capable of get to his ft with assist from trainers and teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He walked gingerly however underneath his personal energy to a cart and was taken off the sphere at Rogers Centre. Louis Varland was referred to as upon from the bullpen.
The Jays will present extra particulars after Ponce goes for testing. He’ll absolutely be despatched for imaging to find out whether or not there are any ligament points. A timetable received’t be recognized till then. On the very least, it’s robust to see Ponce avoiding a stint on the 15-day injured listing.
Toronto has one of many deeper rotations in MLB, as they arguably have eight viable starters. They’ve wanted it with season-opening injured listing stints for Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage and José Berríos. None of these are anticipated to be long-term absences. Yesavage, who’s behind with a shoulder impingement, is about for a 45-pitch simulated recreation later this week. Bieber will progress to throwing off a mound on Friday, whereas Berríos is scheduled for a bullpen session tomorrow (all updates courtesy of the MLB.com harm tracker).
Even when he avoids severe harm, it’s a brutal break for Ponce. The 31-year-old was making his first massive league begin since 2021. Ponce pitched three seasons in Japan and had a dominant ’25 season with the Hanwha Eagles in Korea. He leveraged the numbers and improved stuff right into a three-year, $30MM free agent cope with Toronto. Ponce had fanned three hitters throughout 2 1/3 innings of one-run ball earlier than the harm.
Kevin Gausman, Dylan Stop, Max Scherzer and swingman Eric Lauer are penciled into the rotation. Toronto has off days on April third, ninth, and 14th. They might get by utilizing a four-man rotation and only one bullpen recreation into the center of April. They’d in all probability favor to remain on a five-man beginning workers and make the most of the additional days of relaxation early within the season.
Toronto doesn’t have a lot rotation depth within the higher minors. Jake Bloss and Ricky Tiedemann are additionally injured. Prospects Lazaro Estrada and Adam Macko are the opposite choices on the 40-man roster. They every labored a pair innings out of the bullpen of their Triple-A season debuts over the weekend. Grant Rogers, Chad Dallas, CJ Van Eyk and up to date minor league signee Austin Voth are non-roster potentialities for a spot begin.
