Dodgers Team News

Dodgers: Dave Roberts Says It’s Important For Kenley Jansen To Finish Strong

Just what is Dodgers’ reliever Kenley Jansen trying to do to us all? First off, he’s trying to circle the wagons just in time for the Dodgers to make a run to their first World Series title since 1988. Furthermore, Sunday night was a step in the right direction.

Indeed – Jansen worked a clean bottom of the 8th inning for the Dodgers – capping it off with a dominating strikeout of Mets’ slugger Pete Alonso. Jansen said that he felt really good, and everything seemed to click.

“Everything clicked,” he said of his mechanics. “It’s gotta click at some point. Just keep working hard and get myself ready for the playoffs.”

Surely, it’s nice to hear Jansen talk this way. While he has provided some interesting quotes during times of struggle, it’s good to feel him building confidence and comfort as the year comes to a close.

After Sunday night’s 3-2 victory in New York, Bill Plunkett of the OC Register talked to Dave Roberts about the importance of Jansen stringing together some confidence before the postseason.

Without question, Roberts subscribes to the age-old statement that it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

“Very important,” Roberts said. “How many games do we have left, what is it – 12 games? So you’re talking about potentially four more appearances, something like that. It’s very important – for his confidence, for the team’s confidence. He understands that.”

Equally important, not a lot of time remains for Jansen and his teammates to get into a groove before the final chapters of 2019 are written. Still, Jansen knows exactly what’s going on when struggles occur. Moreover, he sounds like a player who knows exactly what needs to take place for him to be ready when the bright lights turn on in October.

“Every time I struggled, it’s my mechanics,” he said, believing flaws in his delivery had robbed his fastball of velocity and his cutter of its essential late movement. “People say I’m losing my fastball. If I’m out of whack with my mechanics I’m going to lose my fastball. Everything is going to get crisp once I’m more like this (direct to the plate) and not this (side to side).”

Finally, make no mistake about it. Jansen is going to get the ball in the pressure cooker spots of the games that matter. It’s vitally important that the version of the pitcher we saw on Sunday Night Baseball is the guy against the best teams in the postseason field. Los Angeles will struggle to reach the ultimate goal without that player.

Staff Writer

Staff Writer features content written by our site editors along with our staff of contributing writers. Thank you for your readership.

4 Comments

  1. Xlnt piece Clint. Kenley is (mostly) taking responsibility for recent shortcumings–blaming his mechanics–like mechanics are a separate entity and not closer to “his” pitching as a whole. What i saw in the 8th yesterday was the cold dead eyes and killer instinct necessary to complete his task; not taking an adversarial posture with his catcher, and throwing the nasty version of whatever sign goes down.

  2. Clint, Dodgers will need more than just Kenley stepping things up come October. And current injuries may derail things a bit too.. Dodger offense is currently striking out in key situations of late and that is concerning. 13 more times they went down on strikes and if they cannot cut those K’s down, the WS may be out of reach just to get there.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button