Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made it clear at the beginning of Spring Training that the plan was to slow-play closer Kenley Jansen, due to his coming off a career-high in innings in 2017 between the regular season and playoffs.
Even with that, no one could have predicted that it would take three weeks of Cactus League play for Jansen to finally appear in a game. But that’s what ended up transpiring as Jansen first dealt with the flu virus that struck almost the entire team and was then scratched from his debut.
Jansen quickly recovered from the hamstring tightness that prevented him from making a debut, throwing in another ‘B’ game to ensure he was fully healthy.
Jansen finally made his first appearance in a Cactus League game on Thursday against the Kansas City Royals, retiring all three hitters he faced on 13 pitches while striking out one.
After the game, he joked that his vacation is over, although he is still on schedule to be ready for Opening Day, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“I had a great time on vacation, now I’m back,” joked Jansen. “You just have to trust the process. I’ve thrown games on the back field, and I like that personally. No reason to throw a lot of innings early, try to throw hard and it’s not coming out [right], and the next thing you know, something goes wrong.”
Jansen has said in the past that it does not take him more than a couple innings during the spring to prepare himself for the regular season. In addition to bullpen sessions and possibly more work in a controlled environment, he is next scheduled to pitch again on Saturday against the Chicago White Sox.
Jansen’s final tuneup will likely come in back-to-back games when the Dodgers face the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the exhibition Freeway Series.
