On Tuesday evening in the one-and-done 2019 National League Wild Card game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park, Brewers closer Josh Hader blew the biggest save of his professional career and abruptly eliminated his team from the 2019 postseason – something that he and his teammates will be thinking about this entire off-season … and perhaps forever.

Hader’s misfortune, which turned an eighth-inning 3-1 Brewers lead into a 4-3 loss, was a very poignant reminder of just how important a good (and successful) closer is to a team; not to mention that a game – especially one of this magnitude – is indeed not over ’til it’s over.

Ironically, not even an hour before Hader’s epic disaster, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made it abundantly clear and in no uncertain terms that struggling Dodgers right-hander Kenley Jansen is – and will continue to be – his closer for the 2019 National League Division Series, which begins on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium against those very same Washington Nationals.

After the first of his team’s two scheduled pre-NLDS workouts, Roberts addressed the media and, more specifically, addressed the issues that his beleaguered closer has faced recently.

Question: “How would you assess Kenley Jansen heading into the postseason? Is there a scenario where someone else could pitch the ninth inning?”

Roberts: “I don’t see that ninth inning. I know Kenley’s our closer. I don’t see that as an option. And the goal is to get outs, and he understands that. I think that the way that he’s throwing the baseball, he’s shown that recently. And for him to just stay focused and execute pitches, we’ll bet on the results. And he’s done it and I want him to have the ball at the end of the game.”

Question: “Is there anything you saw with Kenley these last few weeks that makes you a little bit more firm in saying that he’s going to remain your closer?”

Roberts: “I think that the outside voices, noise, distractions were starting to bleed into his head as far as sequencing, opinions on his performance, and we got him back to eliminating that. And some self-induced – most of it self-induced to be honest with you – and so he’s gotta get back to just pitching and worry about executing pitches. That right there, I think he’s done that and if he continues, which I expect him to do that, the results will be good.”

Question: “How do you feel about the guys pitching ahead of him as far as the seventh and eighth?”

Roberts: “I think that we have… I know that we have a lot of good options. Obviously, Kenta [Maeda], Pedro [Baez] has been great for us all year long. There’s a lot of guys who I look at in the pen and they’re high-leverage guys, every single one of them. So, obviously you see [Adam] Kolarek as a guy that’s a left-on-left specialist, but outside of that, our guys, I feel, can get both left and right out and they’re all high-leverage guys. So if a guy is pitching in front of Kenley, the starters at the start of the game, I feel very comfortable, very confident.”

Get in, Sit Down, Strap In, and Hold on, Dodger fans. It’s about to get Real.

Play Ball!

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