The perl-5.16.3-294.el7_6 RPM package on RHEL/CentOS 7 is
affected by a memory leak in Perl when calling `ref' on
blessed references. This resulted in a very slow leak that
manifests more quickly with a nonstop "git fetch" loop.
Use Scalar::Util::blessed to work around the issue.
Tested overnight on a CentOS 7 VM.
cf. https://rt.perl.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=114340