New Blue Jays' hitting coach on how to revive Toronto's offence

"Sometimes that's grinding an at-bat for a walk, sometimes that's shooting the ball the other way, sometimes that's hitting the ball out of the yard," he added Monday, after relentless rain cancelled the Blue Jays' game at the Detroit Tigers. "There are a lot of different ways to get that job done and great offences don't have one way, they have every way. That's our plan."

"Our goal is to slug in slugging counts and be a little more on-base/execution in counts that don't yield slug," he explained. "It doesn't make sense for us to try to get the best swing off on a pitcher that's not giving us, really, a pitch to do that. A pitcher that's going to be a little bit more nibbling and executing, you've got to take your knocks, take your jabs, take your toss to the running back. Break them down and then get them to overcommit and then we can go back over the top. That's how I think of it.

"Are we always going to continue to work on our damage swings? One hundred per cent," he added. "I love damage. That's where I've been with the Dodgers and Minnesota. We did a really good job of hitting balls out of the yard. But our goal is to be complete and that's always the standard."

"Not just here's the guy's stuff, here's what it does, here's the movement on it, but more so here are tendencies in certain counts to certain-handed hitters. Here's where to take a shot. Here's where to throttle back," Schneider added. "You're always tweaking it. I don't want to give away too much, but there are some things that he brought from Minnesota, things that Lou has brought from L.A. that guys have been really receptive to."

"It's very hard to think about eight different things when you're facing a top-end starter or a closer, so you want to make sure all that stuff is condensed," Popkins added. "They can pull one thing out of it like a menu, and whatever they want, they can get."