SAN FRANCISCO – He has been good for more than a month. More than good, actually, if you consider his one run allowed over his past 10 appearances stellar work.
Kenley Jansen might. He’s not going to say it.
In fact, the Detroit Tigers’ closer said the opposite earlier this week in Seattle, when he was asked about the trade deadline – losing Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize – and what it meant for the (mostly) young Tigers for the rest of the season.
“At the end of the day, who plays the most? It’s the lineup and the bullpen,” he said, “… with the bullpen, it starts with me. I need to step up and pitch better, and I will be showing that. The rest of the guys need to step up and help the team do the job. You get paid to play a game we love. We just have to go out there with a chip on our shoulder … [and] when it comes to the bullpen, lock it down. It starts there.”
Why did Jansen say he needed to be better when he has been better?
“I’ve got to hold myself for more, you know?” he said Friday, Aug. 7, ahead of the Tigers’ series opener against the Giants at Oracle Park. “That’s the message – clearly – for everybody else … This is the same team that I thought that I was going to play deep into the postseason [with]. So why not [say it]?”
Jansen, who signed a one-year, $9 million deal in the winter to become the Tigers’ closer, arrived as a future Hall of Famer as one of the three or four best closers in history; he moved into third place on the all-time saves list earlier this season and entered Friday 11 saves away from 400. And, at 38, he’s seen a few things, including tough trade deadlines.
He knows that he wasn’t his usual self back in April and May, before he went on the 15-day injured list with right pelvic inflammation. Since his return in mid-June, though, he has been solid, other than a couple of outings. His July was low-key dominant.
Other than the run he allowed in West Sacramento, California, back when this three-city, nine-game, 10-day road trip began, Jansen hadn’t given up a run since June … 28, to be exact – when he allowed four runs against the Houston Astros.
That he wasn’t himself, partly because he was hurt, became part of the larger narrative that the bullpen was having a tough year, because it is, and Jansen didn’t want to do anything other than own his role in that when he spoke in Seattle about needing to be better.
He also wanted to send a message to the rest of the clubhouse that everyone needed to be better with Skubal and Mize gone, and that they had the team to do it. He thought the message would resonate more, however, if he pointed the finger at himself first.
“I wanted [to] carry the weight,” he said Friday.
This didn’t surprise manager A.J. Hinch, of course.
“He’s the sort of player that wants to get himself better before the team gets better,” he said, “… He’s a lead-by-example, which I think is important. We’ve had a number of guys do that over the last month.”
Injury updates
Brant Hurter and Wenceel Perez will continue their rehab assignments in Triple-A Toledo, the Tigers announced. Hurter pitched a third of an inning in Lakeland, Florida early this week in a Low-A rehab start as he recovers from lumbar spine inflammation. Perez, meanwhile is working his way back after a rubber resistance training band snapped and hit his left orbital bone in his face, fracturing it. Perez avoided vision loss and surgery.
Meanwhile, right-hander Brenan Hanifee was optioned to Triple-A Toledo to make room for Jackson Jobe, who was officially moved from the 60-day IL to the big-league roster Friday ahead of scheduled start against the Giants on Saturday (7:15 p.m., Fox).
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kenley Jansen said he had to be better as Tigers closer; he has been
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
