‘That’s all I knew’: New Brave Kenley Jansen reflects on return to LA

Kenley Jansen had not been seeking a modification. He had actually attained a virtually difficult scenario in modern-day sporting activities — security — and also was happy to have actually hung on to it as long as he did. For 17 years, half his life, he would certainly remained in the Los Angeles Dodgers company. Twelve of those years had actually remained in the majors. He would certainly end up being the franchise business’s all-time conserves leader. He had an attractive home near the Pacific Sea, where he dealt with his gorgeous better half, in addition to their 4 youngsters. He had a normal seat beside Los Angeles Lakers proprietor Jeanie Buss whenever he seemed like absorbing an NBA video game. Also the three-story play house he constructed in his yard was ideal.

“When you inquire about the Dodgers, that was family members to me,” Jansen claimed. “That’s all I understood. That’s all I have actually understood my entire life in baseball. I’m so grateful to them for every little thing they carried out in my life. They authorized this child, and also this child came to be a guy. A male, a spouse and also a papa of 4 youngsters.”

This offseason his strategy was to re-sign with the Dodgers as quickly as the lockout finished.

“That was Choice A,” Jansen claimed.

That was the Dodgers’ strategy, also.

“We have a remarkable quantity of regard for Kenley the individual, Kenley the rival, and also it was an off-season concern for us, can be found in,” Dodgers head of state of baseball procedures Andrew Friedman claimed. “It was a top priority for us entering the off-season to maintain him.”

By all accounts, the Dodgers truly did attempt to maintain him, and also he truly did attempt to return.

It simply really did not take place. He desired a three-year bargain; the Dodgers liked a couple of. The sides maintained chatting, yet the mathematics came to be much more made complex after the Dodgers authorized Freddie Freeman — resting so near the deluxe tax obligation, they would certainly require to drop income with a profession prior to they might provide Jansen the sort of bargain he was seeking. There was currently a time problem due to the compressed cost-free firm adhering to the lockout, and also Jansen began to fret he would certainly shed deals he had from various other groups while he waited on the Dodgers.

After that came the protecting Globe Collection champion Atlanta Braves, the group he had actually matured favoring as a child in Curacao, with an abundant 1 year, $16 million deal that required a fast solution.

The stress constructed — and also Jansen began for the very first time to think about Choice B. He breathed, like he’s done hundreds of times on the pile, talked to his better half, Gianni, and also made the selection to carry on and also ideally onward.

“It was really psychological leaving,” Jansen claimed. “Really psychological. Yet often when chances appear in your life, you need to take them or you’ll constantly question what would certainly’ve taken place. Since those chances do not constantly return.”

There was despair all over when he informed his colleagues and also instructors he was leaving. He wept speaking to Justin Turner and also Clayton Kershaw. As well as he’s rather sure he’ll be psychological upon his go back to Dodger Arena on Monday, with the Braves in the area for a three-game collection in LA starting Monday.

Yet if there was one group he might really feel alright concerning leaving the Dodgers for, it was the Braves.

“I bear in mind maturing in Curacao, 5 years of ages, viewing the Doubles and also the Braves on the planet Collection in 1992,” Jansen claimed. “I was a huge follower of Fred McGriff, Andruw Jones, David Justice, Sid Bream, I can maintain calling men. We had the TBS Superstation!

“So I do not wish to take this for given. Daily that I’m below using this attire, I’m mosting likely to appreciate it, and also when times returns, ideally we win a champion below once more this year.”

Jansen likewise really felt a feeling of exhilaration — for the very first time in nearly twenty years, he had a brand-new difficulty in a brand-new area.

“It resembles returning to your very early days when you initially reached the major leagues,” he claimed.

It goes to this factor in the tale that it deserves returning and also remembering what Jansen’s very early days in the major leagues resembled. The year was 2010, and also he was 21. Much less than a year previously he would certainly entered Charlie Hough’s bullpen in Course A San Bernardino, The golden state, to see if there sufficed skill in his ideal arm for the Dodgers’ minors instructors to place in the job of instructing him exactly how to pitch. After 5 periods in the minors, a lot of critics had actually ended he would certainly never ever be greater than a light-hitting catcher. Yet there was something concerning the means he tossed the round to keystone when somebody attempted to take.

“He would certainly go down to his left knee and also toss it to 2nd tougher than our bottle,” Hough claimed in 2010.

The initial strategy really did not exercise. Yet the Dodgers existed an option: find out to pitch, and also linger. If he was open to transform, the Dodgers wanted to provide him a possibility to progress.

“That was difficult for me, also,” Jansen claimed. “I really did not wish to be a bottle. I was a catcher. Yet after that, hi there, a terrific chance turns up, you gotta embrace it.”

More than 350 saves, two Trevor Hoffman Awards as the top reliever in baseball, three All Star appearances and one World Series title later, that change seems to have worked out well for everyone.

“For so long,” Jansen said, “it was like, when I’m in the game, that’s basically it. ‘Turn the lights off; we can go home. Take your cleats off, everybody put their glove down, you don’t have to do anything.’”

But a series of heart issues, combined with a decade of closing games in the big leagues, took their toll. Jansen had started his career as more of a thrower, blessed with an effortless delivery and a right arm that regularly touched 98 miles an hour. For a time, his cut fastball was one of the most devastating pitches in the majors.

By 2018, he was still an elite closer, but he had to work harder to get outs. He couldn’t just blow hitters away anymore. He had to set them up with an assortment of pitches instead of relying on the cutter.

“His growth as a pitcher was really impressive to watch first hand,” Friedman said. “He was so dominant after his conversion to pitching, and then as he obtained older, he had to really pull himself into continuing to develop different pitches and becoming more of a pitcher. It was really fun to watch that evolution and it speaks volumes about who he is, as a person and a competitor.”

At about the same time, Jansen experienced an irregular heartbeat during a four-game series in Colorado. He’d been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in 2011 and had undergone surgery in October 2012, which had largely seemed to fix the issue. But after it reappeared in 2018, he underwent a nearly six hour surgical procedure that offseason. The recovery was intense. For months, Jansen couldn’t lift weights or train the way he normally does. He also had to drastically change his diet — a change that has been good for his overall health, but created the conditions for a down year in 2019.

Jansen still had 33 saves that year, but his ERA was a career-high 3.71.

“I came out [in spring training] throwing 88-89,” he said. “It messed with my mind.”

He knew he’d get his velocity and strength back when he could spend an off-season training as he normally did, but he also knew he had to evolve his approach to pitching — both on the mound and off it. He started working with a sports psychologist to help process everything he’d been through in the previous season: The boos from the home crowds at Dodger Stadium. The loss of invincibility he’d felt with the diminishment of his velocity and strength. He’d never had a problem with the pressure of closing out big games, but he’d also never had to close without his best stuff before.

His wife suggested he pick up a new skill to take his mind off baseball from time to time. So he decided to try piano lessons at the Torrance Arts Academy.

At first it was for fun and escape. But soon it became a lot more.

“It’s helped me tremendously,” Jansen said. “It helped me think more clearly, because when you deal with music, you can’t be distracted.”

He bought a Steinway and started practicing at home, even taping his sessions to study them later — just like he does as a pitcher. The next year, stuck at home during the pandemic, he decided to learn bass guitar and has become similarly obsessed.

“It helps me a lot mentally, to focus better,” he said. “Thoughts can be very tricky. You’ve got to learn to defeat them. When I’m playing music, you’re fighting them — you’re not thinking about it, because you’re so focused on what you’re doing, ‘Right here, right now.’ And that keeps me in that moment of, ‘Right here right now.’

“So when I’m going for a run outside, I’m going to be, ‘Right here, right now.’ How can I run better? How can I push myself better? When it comes to the ninth inning or whatever inning you want me to pitch, it’s going to be, ‘Right here, right now.’ That’s all it matters.”

He’s been repeating that mantra to himself a lot the past few days. After a rocky debut in Atlanta — Jansen gave up three runs in the ninth, though the Braves still won 7-6 — Jansen has pitched three scoreless innings since, including two saves against the Padres. He’s repeating it even more this week, knowing his return to Dodger Stadium is coming up.

The emotion is going to come, and he will let it.

If the Braves have a lead going into the bottom of the ninth, he’ll run out of the visiting bullpen and onto the mound. In some ways, it’ll feel the same. In others, it will be completely foreign. No song will play as he jogs to the mound after 12 years of hearing “California Love.”

But Jansen has embraced enough change in his career to understand that the best thing to do in those moments is stay in them as presently and openly as possible. Not to sit in what could’ve or should’ve been — instead, to live with what did, to welcome the new and also see where that path will take him. Maybe this modification was meant to be, too.

“Let’s see how it feels,” he claimed. “I’m simply going to attempt to concentrate on being, ‘Right below, Now.’”