Cody Ponce injury forces Blue Jays to call up right-hander

The Blue Jays are expected to recall the right-hander from Triple-A Buffalo, with Estrada set to join the club Tuesday after Cody Ponce's ugly exit in Monday's 14-5 loss to Colorado.

That makes this roster move easy to read. Toronto needs innings, and it needs them fast, after Ponce went down in his first Blue Jays start and left the field with a right knee issue.

Estrada's timing lines up with the need. The 26-year-old threw 2.2 scoreless innings with 3 strikeouts in his first outing for Buffalo on Friday, which gave the Blue Jays a ready-made reason to look his way.

This also isn't a cold call from the minors. Toronto optioned Estrada to Triple-A only last week after he stayed in the mix for one of the final bullpen spots in camp.

That part matters because Schneider already knows what kind of role could fit here. Estrada broke into the majors in 2025 and logged 7.1 innings with 10 strikeouts, giving the Blue Jays at least some big-league read on the arm.

The bigger issue is what Monday did to Toronto's pitching plan. The Rockies scored 14 runs, Ponce lasted only into the third inning, and the bullpen got dragged through a game that stopped being clean in a hurry.

That's why Estrada feels like more than a paper move. He can give length if Schneider needs a bridge arm, and right now that job carries weight on a staff that just lost one of its starters mid-game.

There's also some upside here beyond emergency coverage. Estrada made 26 appearances for Buffalo in 2025, including 20 starts, so this is not a reliever-only profile coming through the door.

His track record in Triple-A wasn't spotless last year, with a 5.73 ERA over 97.1 innings, but the Blue Jays have liked the swing-and-miss shape of the stuff enough to keep bringing him close.

And the club had already shown that in camp. Before the option, Estrada posted a 4.76 ERA across 11.1 spring innings while competing for a bullpen job, which kept him squarely on the depth chart.

So the move lands with pretty clear stakes. Toronto is not calling up Estrada for noise. It is calling for coverage after a starter went down and a loss got away from the mound.

The next question is usage.

But the first part is already obvious: after Cody Ponce's injury flipped the pitching picture, Lazaro Estrada became the Blue Jays' next answer.

Hopefully Ponce's injury is not too series but the team has yet to announce the results of his MRI.