Having leaned heavily on Kenley Jansen in consecutive seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers went into Spring Training this year with a carefully-concocted plan to manage his workload. The intention was to keep Jansen fresh for what the organization hopes is another deep postseason run.
Thus far, indications are their handling Jansen with care backfired. There was a hamstring issue during the spring that forced Jansen to be scratched from his scheduled debut. The tightness was deemed a non-issue.
Jansen wound up throwing just 4.2 innings across five appearances in the spring. He gave up a go-ahead home run and was tabbed with the loss in his regular-season debut.
Since that point, Jansen has battled command issues and struggled to pitch with his typical velocity. Jansen’s two blown saves in eight games are more than he had all of last season.
But four days after failing to protect a lead, Jansen turned in arguably his best appearance this season despite it being a non-save situation against the Washington Nationals. The 30-year-old believes it could mark the start of a personal turnaround, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“I’m good now,” said Jansen. “Maybe the season starts for me. Seriously, I just continue and focus and stay on it. This game teaches you, sometimes you can get in bad habits so quick. I never stop believing in myself, no matter the outcome.”
Upon entering the ninth inning with a 4-0 lead, Jansen’s second pitch to Bryce Harper was clocked at 96 mph. A 93 mph cutter followed, jamming Harper and breaking his bat on a soft pop-up.
Ryan Zimmerman fouled out on another 96 mph fastball. After walking Matt Adams, which was a plate appearance that had a borderline pitch called for ball, Jansen blew Matt Wieters away with a steady dose of 93 mph cutters.
Aside from Jansen’s velocity registering at its normal levels, his command was much improved over what had been seen thus far.
