When the ‘save’ became an official MLB statistic back in the ’70s, it brought with it an enigma – the closer. It also brought with it the dubious ‘blown save’ statistic, for which many an MLB career has abruptly ended.

Without question Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman personified the closer role. They were and will perhaps always be the gold standard of the closer role with their respective 652 and 601 career saves and are both deserving future Hall of Famers. But with Rivera and Hoffman now out of the game, it’s names like Trevor Rosenthal, Craig Kimbrel and even resurrected closer and recent All-Star Frankie “K-Rod” Rodriguez who fill the airways of MLB Network and the blog pages of ESPN, Fox and Yahoo Sports.

There is one closer, however, who has been every bit as good as Rosenthal, Kimbrel and K-Rod and at times even better – Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, who trails MLB saves leader Trevor Rosenthal and his 32 saves by exactly two and runner-up Craig Kimbrel and his 31 saves by one (Jansen is currently tied with K-Rod with 30 saves).

Now this is certainly not to take anything away from Rosenthal, Kimbrel or K-Rod, but let’s be fair here, Jansen is every bit as effective as these guys in the closer role, yet he does not receive near the recognition that they do. Now whether this is the result of the dreaded and often denied ‘East Coast Bias’ or the simple fact that Jansen is an extremely quiet and unassuming person (except when he’s on the mound, of course) is unknown, but the truth of the matter is that he gets little love from all but the local Dodger beat reporters and bloggers.

Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis congratulates Kenley Jansen on picking up his 30th save of the season on Sunday evening to complete a three-game sweep of the Giants. With the save Jansen is now tied for third-most in the MLB. (Photo credit – Ben Margot)

It is generally accepted that if a closer earns 40 or more saves in a season he is considered a premier closer and, Lord willing, if he is fortunate enough to reach the coveted 50-saves mark he is teetering in Cy Young Award territory. And with the Dodgers offense apparently (and finally) beginning to heat up, it is quite possible that Jansen will be called upon more frequently to close out games than he has in the recent past and could very well reach the 40+ saves mark for the first time in his five-year MLB career.

Jansen’s appearance in Sunday night’s game was his first in six days and only his third since the All-Star break. During this time he is 3 for 3 in save opportunities and hasn’t blown a save since June 20 in San Diego. On the season Jansen is 1-3 with a 3.24 ERA and has only three blown saves while Rosenthal, Kimbrel and Rodriguez each have four.

With Jansen you can usually tell within his first pitch or two whether he has brought his A-Game or not. If his cut fastball, which is often times compared to Mariano Rivera’s, hits 94 MPH or higher, fuhgeddaboudit – it’s Game Over, as it was on Sunday night when Jansen struck out the side on 13 pitches. Where Jansen has gotten into trouble is when his cutter didn’t… well… cut and it remained on the same horizontal plane. When this happens, Jansen’s cutter tops out in the 89 to 92 MPH range and is what former MLB manager and current DodgerTalk Radio host Kevin Kennedy calls “a cookie,” and is usually shellacked by opposing hitters. Fortunately, and in spite of relatively few appearances thus far since the All-Star break, Dodger fans haven’t seen Jansen’s “cookie cutter” (pun intended) and have instead seen the fuhgeddaboudit Kenley Jansen.

There is one other interesting fact about Kenley Jansen that the national media is apparently oblivious to. According to Eric Stephen over at True Blue LA, Jansen is only the sixth different Dodger closer to record 30 saves in a season, joining Todd Worrell, Jeff Shaw, Éric Gagné, Takashi Saito and Jonathan Broxton. And the beauty of it all is that even if Jansen continues to be snubbed by the national media, he could absolutely care less.