Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro must have the Hall and Oates blasting this morning because…

So, that, ya know, sucks.

Clearly, this is all some elaborate plan by Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, Vlad, and Vlad’s agent to keep him down in Buffalo. The Jays front office forced Vlad to suffer this ‘mild’ injury, so that the service time issue will finally be over, which means that we will never have to hear those two dumb words again (until next year when it’s Bo’s turn). The ‘he’s not major league ready’ prospect is now injured – it’s Grade 1 Oblique Strain madness. Here’s where that is located on the body just in case you weren’t sure:

And here’s how long a ‘mild’ strain typically needs to heal:

I say take all the time you need Vlad. It’s not like you were going to be on the Opening Day roster anyway. It’s just really shitty that this had to happen. But, that just seems to be the way things go here in Toronto.

So cue the ‘Vlad needs to hit the treadmill’ jokes. Cue the ‘this is all bullshit’ Vlad conspiracy theories. Cue all the noise. At the end of the day, it’s just really shitty because spring training just got a lot less fun. Cool? Maybe. Super cool? Totally.

All jokes aside, here’s the latest on when we can expect Vlad to return to baseball:

At least, we have the Anthony Alford storyline to follow for the rest of spring training, right?