TORONTO – John Schneider and Cody Ponce spent a long time talking as Monday night bled into Tuesday morning, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Ponce spent four seasons in Asia trying to find himself as a pitcher, did so during a brilliant 2025 with the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles, and was 2.1 innings into a promising return to the majors when one awkward step left him and the Toronto Blue Jays reeling.
“He’s got pretty good perspective, frustrated, for sure, but I think he has pretty good perspective on it,” Schneider said Tuesday, after revealing that Ponce is going to miss an extended period with an ACL sprain in his right knee. “The person in me just hates it for him, first outing, weird play, all that kind of stuff. But he’s handling it OK. He was in here with his brother-in-law, George Kittle, today, they were kind of laughing – talk about two large humans, Jesus – but he’s in decent spirits.”
Ponce and the Blue Jays were awaiting additional medical opinions before charting definitive steps and Schneider said the club’s hope was that the 31-year-old avoided a complete tear of the ligament.
The “best possibility,” would be Ponce avoiding the operating table, said Schneider, but “even if it’s not surgery, it’s still going to be a pretty significant chunk of time” that he’s out. Recovering in time to pitch again this year will be very difficult given that the ACL is vital in stabilizing the knee and allowing for quick movements, so there’s a very real chance Ponce will have to wait until 2027 to resume his second tour in the majors.
Cold as that reality is for Ponce on an individual level, it’s also a very real challenge for the Blue Jays on a team level, given that injured starters Jose Berrios, Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber are all at least a few weeks away from returning and there’s no obvious fill-in candidate.
Lazaro Estrada, recalled from triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday as Ponce was placed on the injured list, is one possibility to fill Sunday’s vacancy with Austin Voth, signed to a minor-league deal last week to provide rotation depth for the Bisons, another viable internal option.
One thing the Blue Jays are reluctant to do is run a modified four-man rotation by utilizing off-days, not wanting to risk solving one problem while potentially creating another. So, for a team that seemed to have so much rotation surplus over the winter and into the spring, they’re suddenly in a spot where they need to improvise as they go along.
“We’ll have to use our depth, we’ll have to use whoever can offer length and, if that’s one two times through, we do have three other guys kind of getting close in Biebs and Jose and Trey,” said Schneider. “So I think it’ll be a variety of things, really, to cover that until one of those guys is ready to come back.”
