It begins with the first chords of Guns N ‘Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, the sound of Slash opening guitar playing around Dodger Stadium.
The crowd starts. The nightingale door opens. And the man comes out of the trees with curly hair, with ponytail hair and 381. saves his career – his unpredictable movement is so stoic, it is so awesome when he walks across the field and climbs the hill.
It’s all part of Craig Kimbrel’s experience. And for the first time this season, Dodgers fans have seen it up close.
Traded by the team earlier in the season, in hopes of being able to fill a hole the size of Kenley Jansen in the back of the net, Kimbrel’s addition has so far been a success.
He has changed all nine from the chances of his rescue, despite a few close calls. He has an ERA of 4.15 and 17 hits in 13burns a powerful ammunition that he has made an active sporting career, saving the leader and the president at all times.
And he gave the Dodger Stadium a new lease of life in the ninth game, his presence on the tire – from his pre-light to the hanging gesture position – in his 13th MLB season as intimidating as ever.
“He’s not one of those close-ups that comes in the ninth round and you feel comfortable,” teammate Freddie Freeman said.
“He’s like that in his eyes,” said host Alex Vesia, “you don’t want to be with that guy when he’m on the hill.”
Two months During his time with the Dodgers, Kimbrel also brought a new dynamic to the club.
Only, in a way that is the complete opposite of his presence on the field.
Behind the scenes, another Craig Kimbrel emerges – a handsome, kind-hearted, kind-hearted, always welcoming (and nothing but scary) man who has chosen to rush with his new team.
“It’s his [arm] nothing, he has a big beard, he has a tail and he throws 100 – you can think he’s very thin, “Freeman said.” He’s on a hill. “But when you get him out of the throat, he’s just a big man.”
This side of Kimbrel challenges teammates in video games and golf; By manager Dave Roberts, he is jokingly hailed as the club’s best sugarcane; is an advisor to young comforters; and is also one of the most comfortable bullpen items for any night except one indoors.
During a game this season, Kimbrel and David Price laughed and joked until the mid-eighties. Kimbrel then put on his shoes, threw a few warm-ups and fired three Atlanta Braves players for a stress-free escape.
Craig Kimbrel’s raised arm position emerged as a way to deal with the biceps tendinitis he had in his modern season.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
“She’s going to change the switch and go back to the Famer Salon where she’s when she takes over the island,” Price said. “It takes a special person to be able to do that.”
After another outing in San Diego, Kimbrel told Freeman that his neck was tight during the game, only to return it as positive that he was forced to focus on his mechanics.
Freeman said with a laugh, ‘Only you would think so’.
Last week, when a team bus in Philadelphia exploded on a tire on Citizens Bank Park, Roberts jokingly asked if anyone could wear it.
Kimbrel’s hand fired into the air.
“It’s hard to talk about Craig even closer,” Freeman said. “Because Craig is a much better person.”
Kimbrel has been standing next to Dodgers’s goggles lately, when asked about his dugout reputation – about the opposing characters he sits so flawlessly between them that he has balanced it to the point of perfection.
“There’s definitely a shift there,” Kimbrel said. “A lot of people ask me why I do what I do on the hill. I think she has a lot to do with it. It’s a good distinction between who we are and who I’re trying to be there for.”
He smiled.
“I guess people hear that everyone sees me as a happy man, and a quiet man, nice,” he said. “Because I’m trying to be that way.”
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Kimbrel never planned to show up at the end of the games.
Growing up, he dreamed of being in a big league rotation. Even now, he jokingly describes himself as a “failed starter.”
“I think we all think about being on our feet in the end,” he said. “But often, as children, we started playing that game as well.”
Born and raised in Huntsville, Ala., Kimbrel’s prospects for any kind of professional career flourished late – and somewhat by accident.
In high school, the right speed exceeded 90 mph. But after breaking his leg after graduation, the healing process changed his career. He weighed 30 pounds, gained strength in his upper body and jumped from his knees while his leg was healthy.
“When I came back,” he said, “I was running harder.”
Very, very difficult.
At Wallace State, a small university near his home, Kimbrel began to excel in the 90s. He was sent off by the Atlanta Braves in the 33rd round of his recent season, then again in the third round a year later after returning to school in 2007 for a second major campaign.
He did not shoot directly at the seniors, dropping from the Braves’ all-time high A teammate in the fight during his second pro season in 2009. But at the end of that year, he acquired a fastball-curveball mix. that he was on the fast track to making an MLB debut next season.
“When he was sent off,” said Freeman, another chance for the Braves who were also on the Braves senior team at the time, “he turned out to be who he is now.”
However, in his early days with the Braves, Kimbrel was almost terrified because he had established himself in adult life.
Then-Braves bullpen coach Eddie Pérez, who is still part of the team’s big league staff, to see how he would react, said the young jerk is going crazy. One day, Perez remembers Kimbrel being unsure if he had allowed the tortoise to bite his father out of the butterfly.
“It was the first time he was so shy,” Perez finally said with a laugh. “He will be upset by a lot of things.”
Kimbrel’s dominant things, however, made him successful. He won the modern-year award in 2011, and led the National League to finish each of his first four seasons.
His ninth personality – including the raised arm posture, which began as a way to manage bicep tendinitis in his modern season and has since become the basis of his routine – was also crystalline.
“I think the adrenaline and anticipation for what is to be expected in that role, I think it helped me, especially in my younger career,” Kimbrel said. “I have to take responsibility for myself and all my friends. I saw that.”
As Kimbrel’s environment changed it did not change either.
In the evening of the 2015 season, he was sent to San Diego Padres, where Roberts was the club’s coach.
Roberts said, “The closer you think, he has some kind of movement on the hill.” “But when you recognize him, when he enters between the lines he is a different person. And so you want to be.
Will Smith, left, and Craig Kimbrel celebrate after the Dodgers defeated the San Francisco Giants 3-1 on May 3, 2022.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Kimbrel was on the move again the following winter, in another blockbuster deal sent to the Boston Red Sox.
“It was the same as it is now,” said Price, a starter on those Red Sox teams. “Really, really fun to be around.”
When Kimbrel’s free agent spent three months in the 2019 season, Freeman tried to get him back to Atlanta before he finally signed with the Chicago Cubs.
“He’s been like that all over the map in the last few years that the team has been going,” Freeman said. “But who is he? Everyone wants Craig Kimbrel. He has been doing this for a long time.”
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After all, Freeman and Kimbrel have reunited this spring.
Although Kimbrel had three up-and-down seasons in Chicago – he sent the worst ERAs of his career with the Cubs in 2019 and 2020, returning with an All-Star-worthy first half of 2021. , then fell again after a trade in White. Sox on time – The Dodgers made it their goal after Jansen signed with Braves.
A few weeks after Freeman signed with the Dodgers, a deal for Kimbrel finally took place, with club AJ Pollock sending him to the White Sox.
“Society is amazing how people sometimes play baseball,” Freeman said. “My wife took a picture of him and I played the first one. Who would have thought that eight years later, we would still be teammates.”
Price, Roberts and others who have previously shared similar reactions with Kimbrel are delighted to be back in the eight-time All-Star presence.
“I just love the way he looks, like every day is his first day in the big leagues,” Roberts said. “What is very nice to see, a man so successful, and not jealous.”
For the rest of the Dodgers, however, this is the first time the monks have seen it up close.
They knew about the existence of his hill. They were similarly affected by everything that Kimbrel, who was 34 on Saturday, was behind the scenes.
“He loves to talk to young people and make connections, and acts like a brother to me,” Vesia said. “Nice when he comes to me and says, ‘Good job, you’ve been bad tonight.’ ”
Added Daniel Hudson, another former Dodgers player this season, added: “He’s definitely a man you love, just because he’s been so consistent and successful throughout his career.”
All have been featured in these first two months of this season.
Although the rescue situations for the first place club are surprisingly few and far between – Kimbrel went through two different 13-day episodes, in which he did not face a chance of salvation – he changed each one, taking a direct approach that reflects on his impressive move in the game. .
“Really, I want to be as comfortable as possible,” he said. “Strikeouts are fun and they look good. But quickly 1-2-3 and sending everyone happy home, I really see my work as it is. Single out what everyone has done throughout the game.”
After a save this month, when Kimbrel lost two runs in a win over the San Francisco Giants, Vesia noticed that the ball was caught close by.
When the third-year-old cat asked him why, Kimbrel – back in his unconscious mind and falling apart – tried not to make it seem like a big deal.
He only tied Joe Nathan for the eighth highest number of saves in MLB history.
“They just put it all in perspective,” Vesia told Ken. “With this man, we are truly witnessing history.”