{"id":653710,"date":"2026-03-31T03:08:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653710\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:08:30","slug":"cody-ponce-going-for-imaging-with-knee-discomfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653710\/","title":{"rendered":"Cody Ponce Going For Imaging With Knee Discomfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

9:36pm: Ponce is going for an MRI tonight, manager John Schneider said postgame (relayed by Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet<\/a>).<\/p>\n

8:20pm: Blue Jays starter\u00a0Cody Ponce<\/a> left tonight\u2019s season debut on a cart in the third inning. The team has only announced the injury as right knee discomfort.<\/p>\n

Ponce stumbled while trying to field a chopper off the bat of Rockies center fielder Jake McCarthy<\/a> (video provided by Shi Davidi of Sportsnet<\/a>). The big righty was unable to field the ball cleanly, then tried stopping abruptly to pick it up. He tweaked his right leg, took a few more steps, then went down on the dirt a little to the left of first base.<\/p>\n

After spending some time on the ground in clear discomfort, Ponce was able to get to his feet with help from trainers and teammate\u00a0Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> He walked gingerly but under his own power to a cart and was taken off the field at Rogers Centre.\u00a0Louis Varland<\/a> was called upon from the bullpen.<\/p>\n

The Jays will provide more details after Ponce goes for testing. He\u2019ll surely be sent for imaging to determine whether there are any ligament issues. A timetable won\u2019t be known until then. At the very least, it\u2019s tough to see Ponce avoiding a stint on the 15-day injured list.<\/p>\n

Toronto has one of the deeper rotations in MLB, as they arguably have eight viable starters. They\u2019ve needed it with season-opening injured list stints for\u00a0Shane Bieber<\/a>,\u00a0Trey Yesavage<\/a> and\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos<\/a>. None of those are expected to be long-term absences. Yesavage, who is behind with a shoulder impingement, is set for a 45-pitch simulated game later this week. Bieber will progress to throwing off a mound on Friday, while Berr\u00edos is scheduled for a bullpen session tomorrow (all updates courtesy of the MLB.com injury tracker<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Even if he avoids serious injury, it\u2019s a brutal break for Ponce. The 31-year-old was making his first big league start since 2021. Ponce pitched three seasons in Japan and had a dominant \u201925 season with the Hanwha Eagles in Korea. He leveraged the numbers and improved stuff into a three-year, $30MM free agent deal with Toronto. Ponce had fanned three hitters across 2 1\/3 innings of one-run ball before the injury.<\/p>\n

Kevin Gausman<\/a>,\u00a0Dylan Cease<\/a>,\u00a0Max Scherzer<\/a> and swingman\u00a0Eric Lauer<\/a> are penciled into the rotation. Toronto has off days on April 3rd, 9th, and 14th. They could get by using a four-man rotation and just one bullpen game into the middle of April. They\u2019d probably prefer to stay on a five-man starting staff and take advantage of the extra days of rest early in the season.<\/p>\n

Toronto doesn\u2019t have much rotation depth in the upper minors. Jake Bloss<\/a> and\u00a0Ricky Tiedemann<\/a> are also injured. Prospects\u00a0Lazaro Estrada<\/a> and\u00a0Adam Macko<\/a> are the other options on the 40-man roster. They each worked a couple innings out of the bullpen in their Triple-A season debuts over the weekend. Grant Rogers<\/a>, Chad Dallas<\/a>, CJ Van Eyk<\/a>\u00a0and recent minor league signee<\/a>\u00a0Austin Voth<\/a> are non-roster possibilities for a spot start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"9:36pm: Ponce is going for an MRI tonight, manager John Schneider said postgame (relayed by Ben Nicholson-Smith of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54086,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-653710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cody-ponce","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116321589813500037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653710","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=653710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}