On the first pitch Kenley Jansen threw in Friday’s fifth game of this National League Championship Series, he felt what he has for weeks desperately hoped to feel: an addictive co*cktail of relief and excitement. His cutter traveled 91 mph, and it cut.
On his second pitch, he did not feel it again. He took a breath, eased into his delivery and aimed for the former. More times than not, he succeeded. At 33, Jansen remains in one sense the simplest pitcher around: When his delivery is functioning as designed and his cutter is cutting, he is great. When it is not, much else must work in his favor for him to even survive. The complicated part is recapturing the cut when it vanishes.
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“With me, it’s always about a feel,” Jansen said Saturday morning. “How I succeed on it is when you have the feeling back. I’ve been working hard on it, and I feel like it clicked out there. Once it clicked, everything is gonna come with it.”
The click was so convincing that, later Saturday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did what days earlier was unthinkable: He asked Jansen to close what had become a tight Game 6. Jansen did it on six pitches, securing a 3-1 win and forcing Game 7 on Sunday at Globe Life Field.
Before this series began, Roberts and Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior met with Jansen to inform him of his status within the bullpen. Until then, he had been the Dodgers’ No. 1 option to close games since June of 2013. “You might not close,” they told him, “but, Kenley, you’re going to be huge for us this series.” His diminished cutter down the stretch and inability to finish off Game 2 of the National League Division Series necessitated such a conversation, but it proved prescient.
“For us the last two nights,” Prior said Saturday, “it’s been huge, let’s be honest.”
In the last six days, Roberts and Prior have asked their relievers to throw 25 2/3 innings, and they will need several more to win Sunday, with no starter set and no one likely to go deep. Jansen’s innings have not been the highest-leverage among them; the Dodgers have not let him face an opponent’s best hitter since September 30. But the ninth inning of an elimination game is no spot for a slouch.
Jansen owns one of the best postseason ERAs in the sport’s history. If his stuff performs like it has this weekend, the Dodgers do not have a better closing option.
“I tell him this all the time: ‘The one skill that never is quantified is your ability to control the moment,'” Prior said. “You’ve been in big games. You’ve closed games. You’ve taken your lumps. But your ability to at least control it on the surface and not project that things are going crazy …”
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After his NLDS blowup, Jansen did not pitch for a week and worked to find what he had lost. He spoke by phone with Rick Honeycutt, his longtime pitching coach, and Charlie Hough, the retired knuckleballer who helped teach him how to pitch. Both men watched video of Jansen’s work and offered counsel. Both had done so many times before, whenever Jansen’s lower and upper bodies lost touch within his delivery.
“Right now, my timing with my arm and my legs is not synching well,” Jansen said. “To get that back on the same thing, at the same time, that makes it smoother.”
A loss of synchronicity hurts Jansen more than most pitchers.
“When Pedro Báez is subtly off, you don’t necessarily see it in the velocity and movement. We see it maybe in the command, maybe the swings and misses,” Prior said. “But with Kenley, you do see the velocity and command suffer as a result. “
For now, at least, Jansen is on time within his delivery. And Báez, too. A bit lost in Saturday’s shuffle was Báez’s perfect eighth inning that enabled Jansen to avoid facing Ronald Acuña Jr. or Freddie Freeman in the ninth. And Blake Treinen, who struck out Freeman in the seventh with a runner in scoring position. And, of course, there was Mookie Betts, for whom it was another day, another play. On Friday night, Betts went low to snag a fly and prevent a run. On Saturday afternoon, he went high to do the same.
After their first-inning outburst, the Dodgers did not hit. But they preserved the lead they earned with sharp defense and capable relief. It was what they lacked in this series’ first games.
Not necessarily the Dodgers’ closer, Jansen is still a Dodgers closer. They could turn to him Sunday, but he has not pitched on three consecutive days since June 2019. Young late-inning options Brusdar Graterol and Victor González will be rested. Prior said they will need Jansen, too. To make the World Series, they might need everyone. Jansen summed it up before Game 6.
“We just gotta be desperate out there,” he said.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report.
(Photo of Kenley Jansen: Tom Pennington / Getty Images)
