Kenley Jansen was dominant in his prime. The veteran closer spent the first 12 years of his career with the Dodgers before a one-year stint in Atlanta last year.
The righthander is now in Boston and just picked up his 400th career save on Wednesday night.
Jansen recorded a league-best 41 saves with a 1.32 ERA in the 2017 season, the second of three-straight All-Star games for the closer, and he even finished fifth in the NL Cy Young award voting that season.
However, Jansen wore down a bit as his Dodgers career went on. He wasn’t himself in 2020, in particular, with Los Angeles turning to Blake Trenien and Julio Urias to close out games in the World Series.
Jansen opened up about his mental health journey and explained why he’d take “this Kenley over any other Kenley” on the Audacy Original Podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring”.
“I believe so,” Jansen said when asked if he’s better now than he’s ever been. “The reason why I say I believe so is you have more mileage, you’ve been through a lot of situations – good or bad –, and also mentally, I kind of got better mentally. I tell myself ‘It’s OK to not be OK.’ And I got help on that and it shows how I can control my game and myself in any type of situation. I’m more mature now so I’d take this Kenley over any other Kenley.”
Despite the Dodgers finding team success with their first World Series victory since 1988, Jansen was down in the dumps.
The once-dominant closer lost his job at the most important time of the year. He only pitched in two World Series games and allowed a run in each appearance, including taking the loss with a blown save in Game 4.
Kenley’s wife, Gianni, noticed the pitcher’s mental health wavering and urged him to get help.
“My wife saw how miserable I was,” Jansen said. “As a team, we accomplished winning the World Series but I didn’t accomplish what I was supposed to do, and I take pride in that to do better.”
Now, after putting his mental health first, Jansen is back to his dominant ways. He’s allowed just one run in his first 11 ⅔ innings with the Red Sox while striking out 17 and picking up nine saves.
“As long as I’m going to play this game I’m always going to put my 110% in it to do better,” Jansen said. “Otherwise, if I don’t want to get better I should be going home. It’s not time to go home. It’s time to get better.”
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