It was brutal.

Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen was one strike away from from giving the Dodgers their third consecutive win in game number five of the new 2018 season against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Monday night. One strike.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, the man often called “the best closer in the game” threw a flat 91-MPH fastball with zero movement on it right over the heart of the plate that Dbacks right fielder Chris Owings absolutely crushed for a devastating save-blowing / three-run home run to (very) deep left-center field; thus abruptly turning an apparent 6-3 Dodgers win into a tied ballgame that would labor on for another two and a half hours and six additional innings, and would eventually end in a 7-6 Dodgers loss.

This is not what we are accustomed to seeing from the best closer in the game. Might it suggest that there is something physically wrong with Kenley Jansen? (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

To make matters worse, the 30-year-old Willemstad, Curacao native had walked two Dbacks batters ahead of Owings; something unheard of from Jansen and a sign that there may be something physically wrong with the 6′-5″ / 275-pound Dodgers right-hander; this in spite of his repeated claims that there is nothing wrong with him physically.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Slow start,” Jansen told reporters after the game. “Owings got me. It sucks man, but nobody’s going to feel sorry for me. Nobody wants to get beat, nobody wants to blow saves, nobody wants to lose games.

“Today sucks,” Jansen added. “It sucks to see Wilmer [Font] go five innings, he doesn’t deserve that loss. It happens. What can I do? I just have to bounce back and help the Dodgers win tomorrow.”

Keep in mind that this is the same Kenley Jansen who, when he gave up a game-winning home run to Giants second baseman Joe Panik only three days earlier and insisted that there was nothing mechanically wrong, later admitted that there was. And even though the velocity of Jansen’s cutter was a mile per hour or two faster on Monday than it was against the Giants last Friday, it was still below the 94 to 95 MPH that we are used to seeing from him.

The Dodgers intentionally limited Jansen’s innings during spring training to allow him to pitch deeper into the season and postseason. He appeared in only five spring training games where he made a grand total of 42 pitches, 31 of which were strikes. He did not walk a batter. Could his recent struggles simply be that he is not ready due to his abbreviated spring? (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

What is most troubling and something that no one mentioned after Monday night’s 15-inning / five hour and 46 minute marathon – the longest game in the 20-year history of Chase Field – is that Jansen was observed on camera massaging his right shoulder after his second blown save in four days.

Was this Jansen merely trying to work out a little stiffness? Or was it him attempting to relieve some pain? Here again, Jansen adamantly denies that there is anything physically wrong with him; a claim that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts corroborates … at least for now.

“From everything that I hear from Kenley, from the training staff, he’s fine physically, and just didn’t execute,” Roberts told SportsNet LA’s Alanna Rizzo. “The first two outs, he gets two outs, and he’s got [Dbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt] up, very uncharacteristic, walks two guys and gives up the homer, so it’s going to happen, it’s happened, obviously two outings in a row for Kenley, very uncharacteristic.

“He’s our guy and it’s just one of those things,” Roberts added. “And he’s going to be ready to pitch tomorrow.”

Is he?

Stay tuned…