Kenley Jansen Sends Warning to Rest of AL Central

The Detroit Tigers sold at the trade deadline.

Kenley Jansen does not believe that means they surrendered the AL Central.

With Detroit surging back into both the division and Wild Card races, the veteran closer delivered a confident message to the teams sitting around the Tigers in the standings.

“It’s how we finish,” Jansen said. “We all had an awful start. It’s a long season. They’re going to remember you as how you finish and what you do lately for this ballclub. We’re all stepping up right now, and if we step up I don’t think there’s anybody better than us in this division, respectfully. We just gotta be hungry … They’re going to be close games, they’re going to feel like playoff games now, and we just gotta focus on the next day as tomorrow and try to win that game.”

That sounds nothing like a player preparing for the season to wind down.

Detroit’s deadline created plenty of questions after Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize were traded away.

Jansen sees what remains.

“We didn’t trade any offensive players,” Jansen said. “We got rid of two really good pitchers, but when you see (Troy) Melton, when you see (Jackson) Jobe, those guys coming up, you understand why. It’s still the same team that was talking about going deep in the playoffs this year.”

That might be the most important point coming from the Tigers clubhouse right now.

Skubal and Mize were significant losses, but Detroit’s lineup remained intact. Young pitchers are being asked to take on larger roles, while the Tigers’ young position-player core continues to grow around Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Kevin McGonigle and Max Clark.

Detroit has won eight of its last 10 games and entered Wednesday only 2.5 games behind first place in the AL Central and one game out of the final Wild Card position.

The Tigers also own an AL-best plus-89 run differential, another indication that their record may not tell the entire story.

If Detroit is going to make a serious run, its bullpen cannot continue giving away games.

Jansen knows that starts with him.

“I have to get better,” Jansen said. “I’m going to keep saying that. I’m way better than who I am this year. If I have to be better, everybody in the ‘pen has to be better.”

That accountability matters because the bullpen remains one of Detroit’s biggest questions entering the final stretch.

The offense has been productive for more than two months. The rotation owns one of baseball’s best ERAs. Detroit’s defense has dramatically improved from where it was earlier in the season.

The bullpen has to hold up its end.

Jansen is not asking anyone else to improve without first pointing the finger at himself.

The Tigers have received some help from the teams around them.

Chicago, Minnesota and Cleveland have all struggled since the All-Star break, allowing Detroit to erase much of the deficit it faced only weeks ago.

Nearly half of the Tigers’ remaining games will come against AL Central opponents.

That means Detroit will have plenty of opportunities to control its own fate.

And based on Jansen’s comments, the Tigers are no longer looking at themselves merely as a team fighting to sneak into the Wild Card.

They believe the division is there for the taking.

“I don’t think there’s anybody better than us in this division, respectfully.”

Now they have to prove it.

Kenley Jansen is not interested in what Detroit’s record looked like in May.

He is interested in what it looks like when September ends.

The Tigers traded Skubal and Mize, but their playoff hopes survived. Detroit is only 2.5 games from first place, its young players are contributing, and the club has won eight of 10.

Jansen’s warning to the rest of the AL Central is simple.

If the Tigers keep stepping up, he believes nobody in the division is better than Detroit.

The next several weeks will tell us whether he is right.