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Instant Reaction: Cody Ponce suffers injury as Rockies hand Blue Jays their first loss
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Photo credit: © Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
Mar 30, 2026, 22:30 EDTUpdated: Mar 30, 2026, 22:58 EDT
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Well, no one said the Toronto Blue Jays were going to go 162-0.
On Monday evening, the Blue Jays welcomed the Colorado Rockies for the first of three. It didn’t go well for them, as they fell 14-5, their first loss this season. Let’s take a look at what went on in it.
Cody Ponce made the start for the Blue Jays and looked great in his first two + innings. Unfortunately, he suffered an injury trying to field a ground ball, which also scored the Rockies’ first run. The Blue Jays responded with a George Springer home run in the bottom of the third to tie the game.
With a runner on second, a ground ball was hit to Ernie Clement, with it taking a hop over his glove. That allowed the Rockies’ second run to score. The score stayed that way until the top of the sixth, as Troy Johnston hit a two-run home run. That home run essentially won the Rockies the game.
Brendon Little came into the game, being tagged with four runs while also allowing an inherited runner to score. By the time the top of the sixth inning ended, the Rockies had a 9-1 lead. With Tyler Heineman on the mound in the top of the eighth, the Rockies scored another four runs.
The Jays had an answer for them in the bottom of the eighth, as Andrés Giménez hit his first home run of the season. This one came off the bat at 101.7 mph and travelled a distance of 406 feet.
Following Giménez’s home run, Jesús Sánchez reached base on a hard hit single, bringing up Davis Schneider. The Blue Jays’ second baseman drove in two more runs with one swing of the bat. In the top of the ninth, the Rockies got a run back.
By this point, there was no hope of a comeback, but Kazuma Okamoto hit his second career home run off an upper-90s pitch, so that was encouraging to see.

Takeaways…

That was just a brutal game. Ignoring the score, it was hard to see Cody Ponce go down with an injury given it was his first game back in the big leagues since 2021. Losing him for any period of time is also bad news for the Jays thanks to their plethora of injuries.
Before being injured, Ponce looked terrific. Over his two and one-third innings pitched, he allowed one hit, one earned run, one walk, and one strikeout. While the run was earned, it only happened because he took a tumble while throwing a pitch, which was called a balk to move the runner to third. It’s unclear if that had any impact on his injury shortly after.
Ponce also generated a game-high 15 whiffs, including eight on his slider, four on his splitter, and two on his fastball. Overall, Ponce had a 51.7 whiff%. Hopefully, his injury looked worse than it actually was. It’s hard to fault the Jays for their performance as well.
There weren’t many positives from this game, but the fact they hit a season-high four home runs is one of them. George Springer hit his second of the season, as did Kazuma Okamoto. Andrés Giménez’s strong start to the season continued as he hit his first home run of the season, as did Davis Schneider.
Okamoto also got it done with the glove, making a terrific play on a sharp ground ball. It’s the second good play he’s made at the hot corner, and he’s quickly proven that he’s at worst, average at the position. That’s a huge development for the Blue Jays.
The bullpen wasn’t great in this game. Louis Varland struck out three and allowed an unearned run in an inning and a third. Spencer Miles had a strong start to his outing, but gave up a two-run home run. He departed with a runner on the base, who eventually came in with Brendon Little on the mound. Tough game for Little once again, giving up four earned runs in two-thirds of an inning. Tyler Rogers threw a perfect inning with a strikeout.
It’s best for the Blue Jays to erase this game from their memory and move on to Tuesday. That game also has a 7:07 PM ET start time, with Max Scherzer making his first start of the season.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for Blue Jays Nation, Oilersnation, and FlamesNation. She can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.

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