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.

The severity of the injury wasn’t immediately known, as the Blue Jays said only that he left the game with right knee discomfort. But the effects of a possible Ponce absence, as well as the spin-off effects on the rest of the pitching staff, loomed large after a messy 14-5 thumping from the Colorado Rockies. 

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,........

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