Dylan Cease injury scare has the Blue Jays shaking

The moment came in Toronto's 5-0 loss to Boston, when Cease tripped on the mound and went down trying to field a ground ball in the fifth inning. The play looked bad enough right away to bring back some ugly memories in the Blue Jays dugout.

Schneider admitted after the game that he had Cody Ponce flashbacks when he saw Cease hit the dirt. That is not some throwaway comparison inside this clubhouse. Ponce's season was blown up by a knee injury on a weird mound play less than 1 month ago.

That is why this landed the way it did. The Blue Jays have already watched 1 starter go down on a freak infield sequence, so seeing Cease tumble in a similar setting was always going to freeze the room for a second.

The good news is that this one ended differently. Schneider said after the game that he was glad Cease was okay, and there was no immediate sign that the fall had created another injury problem for Toronto's battered staff.

That matters because Cease has been one of the few stable pieces in the rotation, even on a night when his outing went sideways late. MLB.com's recap noted that he struck out 5 through the first 3 innings, then finished with 5 2/3 innings, 7 hits, 4 earned runs, 3 walks and 5 strikeouts.

The stumble itself added to the chaos. An AP photo caption from the game noted Cease missed the ground ball and tumbled off the mound as a run scored during the fifth inning.

That is the bigger layer to Schneider's reaction. This was not just a manager wincing at an awkward fall. It was a manager thinking back to a recent injury that changed part of his rotation plans.

Ponce suffered an ACL sprain in his right knee on March 30 after an awkward step on a mound play, and Sportsnet reported he is expected to miss a significant stretch. That left Toronto scrambling for innings almost immediately.

So when Cease went down, the fear was easy to understand. Toronto has already placed Max Scherzer on the injured list, and the club has spent much of the opening month patching around absences in the rotation.

Cease's line Monday was frustrating, but that was secondary once he got back up. A bad inning can be fixed. Another starter going down on a freak fall would have been much harder to absorb.

That is why Schneider's postgame comment said so much. Cody Ponce was the first thought, and relief was the final one. For the Blue Jays, Dylan Cease walking away okay was the best part of a night that otherwise gave them very little.