Los Angeles Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen has battled through plenty of struggles in recent years and again during portions of the 2020 season, but when it came time to finish out Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, he was on the mound.
Not that it was a surprise by any means, of course. Jansen was able to take care of business to earn a save in the 4-2 victory, only walking one in a scoreless inning. It wasn’t pretty though as Jansen’s cutter velocity was down to as low as 86 mph, and his command was off as well.
Walking the No. 9 hitter with two outs gave Christian Yelich a chance as the tying run. Yelich eventually struck out to end the game, helping Jansen out by swinging at some pitches out of the zone.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wasn’t exactly pleased with how his closer looked after the game, saying his stuff “lacked teeth.” Although upon watching video of the appearance, Roberts had a different perspective.
“It was much better than I thought,” Roberts said before Game 2. “You just take away that Jace Peterson at-bat, everything else was right where it needed to be. I can make assessments from the side but I really can’t appreciate what the baseball is doing and the swings.”
Roberts acknowledged concern over Jansen’s velocity trending downward over the past month, and though he couldn’t pinpoint a reason, maintained the right-hander is not in danger of losing his role.
When asked if he could definitively commit to Jansen as the Dodgers’ closer, Roberts answered, “Absolutely.”
Outside of a few bad outings, Jansen has been lights-out this season, so it is not surprising to see Roberts take that stance.
Brusdar Graterol gets save opportunity
The Dodgers were able to close out the Brewers with a second consecutive win on Thursday night, this time blanking them by a score of 3-0.
After Clayton Kershaw tossed eight shutout innings, Roberts went to rookie Brusdar Graterol, not Jansen, for the save. After the game, Roberts said that Jansen was available and he simply opted to give the Brewers a different look rather than have his closer face a similar stretch of batters from Game 1.
“I just felt that Brusdar, these guys hadn’t seen him. Kenley is going to close out many games for us as we go forward. He understands it’s about the team. Kenley is all in on whatever it takes to win baseball games,” Roberts explained.
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