The Blue Jays opening homestand was undeniably less than satisfying, even though the team finished up a successful 5-2 set at Rogers Centre before heading to New York for the Mets home opener. Maybe it’s because the attendance was disappointing. Maybe it was that the front end of the bullpen was abysmal in three of the games, led by the failures of secondary southpaws Richard Lovelady and his replacement Mason Fluharty. On this edition of Exit Philosophy, Griff and Mal discuss MGR John Schneider’s learning process with a team relying on its rotation and some spectacular defence to get by, evidenced by the warning signs of a negative team run differential. With rumours of an imminent Vlad extension floating around, mostly from Vlad’s own people, where do they think the situation stands with optimism tempered by the reality that the Jays could have and should have handled the Vlad and Bo issues long ago. They talk “torpedo bats”, a 10-game road trip, the suggested revision of the Jays lineup and much more.

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For the full catalogue of Richard Griffin's work, including weekly Blue Jays/MLB columns, a weekly MLB Power Rankings column, exclusive conversations with some of the game's greats, past and present, and the Exit Philosophy podcast, visit https://www.griffsthepitch.com/