Kenley Jansen Is Off To A Record-Breaking Start

The Dodgers’ pitching staff racked up a whole lotta strikeouts against the Brewers last night—a record-tying 26, as part of a 12-inning win that featured 42 Ks in total between the two teams. Clayton Kershaw got the spotlight for recording his 2,000th strikeout, but Kenley Jansen also hit a milestone here with four Ks of his own: he set the record for most strikeouts to begin a season without recording a walk.

After pitching 22 innings this year, Jansen’s sitting at 39 strikeouts and 0 walks. That translates to striking out nearly half of the batters he’s faced (48.2 percent, behind only Craig Kimbrel and, uh, Tommy Kahnle). And what’s perhaps craziest here is that there’s no reason to think that his K-BB ratio is going to change dramatically any time soon. While he’s always posted high strikeout numbers thanks to his ridiculous cutter, his command has been steadily improving over the last few years. After hovering around the 10 percent mark in the early seasons of his career, his walk rate has dipped below five percent in each of the last two seasons—and this kind of start to the year, apparently, is the next step there.