SAN DIEGO -- Watch Kenley Jansen hesitate in the middle of his delivery, his front leg dangling above the mound, and it’s easy to get the sense of a world-class soccer striker approaching a penalty kick -- slowing but never stopping, probing for a weakness while keeping his opponent guessing on when the ball is coming. No, Jansen doesn’t have to beat a goalkeeper, but he has to beat a hitter and keep him guessing just as well.
It is part deception, part suspense, and Jansen has had plenty of time to master both. Which makes it all the more ironic that a closer who has built a Hall of Fame-worthy career in part on making hitters wait, has made hurrying up such a big part of the training that has allowed the 38-year-old reliever to beat Father Time.
Long before the bullpen phone rings for the ninth, hours before the first pitch is even thrown, Jansen will run the outfield warning track. He has built a small running club of teammates and staffers to go with him, a group that included pitching coach Chris Fetter before Saturday’s series finale against the Padres at Petco Park. At 6-foot-5 and 265 pounds, Jansen towers over many of them.
No, he does not hesitate mid-stride.
“That’s my pregame,” Jansen said, “running laps, stay in shape and prepare.”
Jansen would not be the first middle-aged man to find solace and fitness in the run. But Jansen has been doing this long before he aged.
“All my career,” Jansen said. “Probably you guys weren’t paying attention when I was playing you guys, but every city I go, I do a lot of running. Some days I know when to back off, some days I know when to add a little more.”
Both on the mound and off of it, Jansen thrives at being unpredictable enough to keep people on their toes, a fitting trait for a former catching prospect who became a pitcher. He made his cutter into one of the most devastating pitches in baseball, nasty enough that hitters would know it’s coming and not be able to do anything with it. His saves were beauty in simplicity.
His first save as a Tiger on Friday was an easy 11-pitch ninth inning, striking out the Padres in order and briefly looking like he might get an immaculate inning. If you watched him closely, though, you noticed a twist: His first two strikeouts were on high sinkers, not cutters, sending down left-handed hitters Gavin Sheets and Jake Cronenworth swinging at high heat out of the zone. He ended the game by striking out Nick Castellanos on a cutter -- but he started off Castellanos with a slider.
The sinker has quietly become a part of Jansen's strategy. Though he has thrown cutters for more than 80 percent of his pitches over the past two years -- and for eight of his 11 pitches Friday -- that rate shifts according to the count. When he put hitters in an 0-2 count last year, like he did with Sheets and Cronenworth, his cutter usage dropped to just over 50 percent, while his sinker rate rose to about a quarter.
“I’ve been doing that for a little bit now,” he said. “I’m using it a little more often to keep hitters honest so they can’t sit on one pitch, the cutter. We’ve been talking about it in Spring Training, about the sequence, so I’m trying to do it a little bit different this year.”
When Jansen gets to his leverage count, he likes to throw in a wrinkle.
“I’m not a sinkerball pitcher,” Jansen said, “but if you switch it once in a while, I think it’s going to benefit you in the long run.”
He did not literally mean the long run; that’s for before games. But it’s another way he stays unpredictable as he continues to climb towards 500 saves, now 23 away.
“I think with Kenley, he’s just been so unique throughout his career,” president of baseball operations Scott Harris told MLB Network Radio on Sunday. “He’s a double-plus extension guy, so that creates discomfort for hitters. His delivery is so deceptive. It’s just a huge human throwing a lot at a hitter. And then the late cut on his cutter, the sneaky vert on his sinker, and then one of the breaking balls that he threw in his outing in San Diego just reminds you that there’s just another shape that hitters have to stay on at a different velocity. He just has so many weapons to be able to make hitters uncomfortable, and it’s a big change from the other guys that we have at the back end of the bullpen.”