Dodgers Interview: Treinen’s back-to-basics mindset going into 2026
CAMELBACK RANCH, AZ– Blake Treinen’s first Cactus League inning on Wednesday looked like a clean reset. He came in, got his work done, and walked off the mound with the kind of calm that usually shows up later in March. Afterward, both Treinen and Dave Roberts talked about the same thing from different angles: a healthy offseason, a sharper version of his stuff, and a sense that he’s ready to make 2026 a bounceback year.
Treinen described his spring mindset in a way that felt very on-brand for him, even as a veteran with plenty of big moments on his résumé. “It’s going to sound weird, but the mindset that I’ve had every year is just prove yourself to the team to be good enough to make a spot,” he said. “People can probably laugh at that, but that’s just a mindset I’ve always told myself to keep.” He said the inning felt good, even with that familiar first-appearance adrenaline. “I still had butterflies,” Treinen said. “I was joking with the umpire, ‘Man, I can’t feel my legs.’ Every year it happens. So I just need to throw a little bit and then the heart rate calms down a bit and then I’ll settle back in. But yeah, it felt good today. I’m really happy with where things are at.”
He also pointed to a few small points of emphasis that have helped him clean things up, especially early strikes. “There’s a few small things that we did some talking about as spring was getting closer and I felt pretty confident about,” Treinen said. “I wouldn’t even call them mechanical adjustments, but focuses on my delivery. It really seemed to clean up shapes on my pitches, and more strikes early. I think I fell behind 2-0 twice, which sucks, but there’s a lot more strikes out there than it was last year.”
Roberts sounded like he expects a different version of Treinen this season, and he framed last year as an outlier compared to what Treinen usually brings. “I expect big things,” Roberts said. “Last year was an outlier of a season. He’s excited about 2026 and got that bad taste in his mouth as far as individual performance. He’s confident, he’s healthy, he looks good, and he’s been throwing the baseball really well all spring. So to get out there and see it in a game was great, too.”
Treinen didn’t dodge what frustrated him about last season, even as he acknowledged the spring had started well before things went sideways. “Last year felt great in spring also,” he said. “I ran into some unfortunate feelings in the forearm that set me back quite a bit.” Then he got to the part that clearly still bothers him. “There’s no excuses. I was fine. I just wasn’t competing to the clip that I hold myself to the standard of. And it was frustrating for me, for a lot of people.”
He closed with a pretty direct statement of intent for 2026. “This year will be a better year,” Treinen said. “I’m excited to turn the page and see 2026 be my best year ever.”
That’s spring talk, sure, but it also matched what Roberts sees when he watches him right now. Treinen has a veteran’s edge to him, and even on a day when he’s joking about his legs shaking, he sounds focused on the things that make him effective. If he strings together healthy weeks and keeps filling the zone the way he described, the Dodgers bullpen gets a lot deeper in a hurry.
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