Cody Ponce just calmed Blue Jays fans fears by dominating Yankees in spring outing

The Toronto Blue Jays rotation is down bad right now. Really bad.

Shane Bieber and Bowden Francis both went down in February, with the latter set to miss the entire 2026 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Then, earlier this week, they were delivered another blow in the form of Jose Berrios' stress fracture diagnosis.

In case all that wasn't bad enough, postseason phenom Trey Yesavage joined that trio on the injured list this week with a right shoulder impingement.

So, it's no stretch to say that Cody Ponce's latest spring training outing was perhaps the most important performance the Blue Jays have seen since the World Series.

In what may be his final tune-up for the regular season, the 31-year-old shut down the New York Yankees, tossing 5.2 scoreless innings while allowing just one hit. The Blue Jays will need a whole lot more of that in 2026.

Blue Jays will be relying heavily on Cody Ponce in 2026 after injury plague weakens rotation

It's worth noting that Ponce's start didn't exactly come against the Bronx Bombers — instead of a lineup featuring Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, the Yankees ran out a group headlined by Randal Grichuk and Jace Peterson. Plus, as we all know too well, these exhibition stats rarely mean anything once the games start to matter.

But, more than any other veteran, Ponce is pitching to prove something this March. He's made just five starts in MLB and thrown a total of 55.1 innings in his big-league career. All of that workload came with the rebuilding Pittsburgh Pirates in 2020 and 2021, when the right-hander worked to a 5.86 ERA and 5.47 FIP.

In the years since, he's pitched in Japan (NPB) and Korea (KBO) to varied results. He was solid in all three of his NPB seasons, accruing FIPs between 2.90 and 3.60 in each year (even if his ERA fluctuated more intensely). Then, the righty made his turn to the KBO in 2025, and everything clicked. In 29 starts (180.2 innings), Ponce logged a 1.89 ERA and 2.15 FIP, striking out a whopping 36.2% of hitters. Hence why the Blue Jays were comfortable handing him a three-year contract in free agency.

He won't perform like that in his return to the big leagues, but even a slight improvement over his previous MLB numbers would be a boon for Toronto's suddenly depleted depth chart. He, Max Scherzer, and Eric Lauer will need to band together to hold down the fort until at least Bieber and Yesavage are ready to return.

If his latest start is any indication, it's clear that Ponce is capable of doing just that.