Weekly Update: Kenley Jansen

[samscherer]

Kenley Jansen had a pretty horrible week. There’s no way around that. There is, however, room for hope.

On Tuesday night in Arizona, Jansen gave up 3 runs in the 10th (he got the last out of the 9th, as well) before getting the three outs he needed to end the game. Felt like sort of a blip, he didn’t walk anybody, just didn’t have his sharpest stuff, whatever.

On Saturday, however, he downright imploded vs. the Astros. Handed a 5-2 lead with three outs to get, Jansen gave up 5 consecutive hits (with an error sprinkled in there) without getting an out. Yes, you read that right. Without getting an out. Now, of course, Dave Roberts shouldn’t have let Kenley die out there, but he just couldn’t put batters away. His velo was down and he couldn’t put guys away after getting them down in the count, giving up a ton of 0-2 hits. It was his worst outing of the year, by far. He was almost impossibly bad, but he’s still the closer, and probably should be, considering how good he’s been most of the season.

He came into to pitch the ninth in Sunday’s 8-1 win over Houston and pitched beautifully with his velocity back and utilizing his nasty breaking ball, sequencing his pitches better. It was certainly encouraging to just see him get three quick, stress free outs, and put guys away after attacking them in the zone.

Hopefully, Jansen can find some consistency going into the playoffs, and I really believe that after tonight, the good pitcher is still in there, and that’s the real Jansen this season. That, is our closer.