Can Kimbrel meet his own standards?

Craig Kimbrel, Braves — Saves 42, Strikeouts 116, Walks 14, ERA 1.01.

Rafael Soriano, Yankees — Saves 42, Strikeouts 69, Walks 24, ERA 2.26.

Jason Motte, St. Louis — Saves 42, Strikeouts 86, Walks 17, ERA 2.75.

The secret to being a good closer lies in the ability to shake off the inevitable ugly outing and move on unbowed to the next challenge.

Early in the process of making himself into the Braves most consistent, reliable asset — it was the night of Sept. 9, 2011, to be precise — Craig Kimbrel showed himself capable of world-class bounce-back.

He had that night in St. Louis mapped out so well. He had the reservation at the fancy restaurant. He had the ring. After the night game against the Cardinals, at dinner, he would surprise Ashley Holt with the proposal.

Only the Cardinals rewrote the script. They scored two off Kimbrel in ninth, sending the game into extras. The eventual Braves loss was one of the more disturbing in a long line that would add up to a colossal September meltdown.

By the time Kimbrel washed that one off, the fancy joint was closed. He had to scramble just to find somewhere else to eat. Over dinner he stewed about what to do. Back at the hotel, at the last moment, when he usually does his best work, he asked Ashley to marry him.

“I couldn’t wait. The ring was burning a hole in my pocket,” he said.

You overcome. You adapt. You trust your stuff.

Ashley said yes. They were married last December.

The wedding was but a continuation of Kimbrel’s year-long hot streak.

In Ashley, whom he met back home in Alabama at Wallace State Community College, he seemingly found the perfect woman to share his interests. The archetypal Southern outdoorsman knew he met his match this deer season when his wife brought down an 8-point buck.

“A perfect shot,” he reported to his newspaper back in Huntsville. “It kinda made me nervous.”

He is not one of those closers whose personality burns with an intense, short-lived heat, to match the typical closer’s career arc. He has to date shown none of the eccentricities that sometimes attach themselves to his kind. When the Braves closer is asked about his idea of a perfect off day, he chews on it for moment and decides, “I enjoy being on the water. Off days in the summer, me and my wife and friends float down the river. I like being outside; I’m not real big on getting cooped up inside much.”

He has preserved most of whatever flashiness resides within him for the mound. His only tattoo is on his chest, a reference to a Bible verse — Philippians 4:13. Although Kimbrel’s not promising he won’t add to the collection. “But if I do, they’ll be covered up,” he said.

The wave that he has been riding since leading the National League in saves (42) last season has been Hawaii’s North Shore worthy.

It carried him directly into the start of 2013 spring training, where during Tim Hudson’s charity golf tournament, Kimbrel scored his first hole-in-one. A 4-iron from 180 yards (wind was blowing in hard, Kimbrel explained). Air-mailed it right into the cup, fastball down the middle.

How perfect was it? There was an open bar after the event, so Kimbrel didn’t even have to buy the customary round of drinks.

Even the one noted failure of spring 2013 — Kimbrel gave up two runs in the ninth in a World Baseball Classic loss to the Dominican Republic — could be summarized and summarily dismissed in a single brief exchange.

Walking back through the training camp clubhouse on his return to Orlando from the WBC, Kimbrel was asked in passing about his experience by first baseman Freddie Freeman.

“I had to get (the bad performance) out somewhere,” Kimbrel shrugged.

“You didn’t get it out last year,” Freeman countered.

In 2012 Kimbrel was more cruelly efficient at closing time than a bouncer with a hot date. He turned out more lights than Mike Tyson. It wasn’t just the volume of saves that marked his season as special, it also was the numerically breathtaking dominance he displayed.

Striking out 116 of the 231 hitters he faced, Kimbrel became the first pitcher to work double-figure innings in a season (he went 62 2/3) and fan at least half the batters he faced. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was a ridiculous 8-to-1.

It was the kind of season to likely spawn a generation of fans Kimbreling — not to be confused with Tebowing — imitating the pitcher’s low pre-delivery hunch, with lethal right arm protruding like a bird’s broken wing.

At home, the Braves have turned each of his appearances into grand theater, complete with a rock musical score and special video board effects that seem to set the upper deck afire.

“You see the flames come on, him running in, you know you have a really good chance to win the ballgame,” Freeman said. “It’s a very calm comfortable feeling out on the field watching him throw.”

The Mets David Wright has called Kimbrel’s stuff “truly electric,” not to be confused with others’ acoustic 98-mile-per-hour stuff.

Combine that with a whiplash-inducing change-of-speed slider and Kimbrel possesses the tools that demand even his peers’ attention.

“Getting to watch a guy like Craig throw as many times as I have, every time I get excited because you know his stuff is better than everybody else’s, on a different level,” said the Braves’ set-up man, Jonny Venters, currently dealing with elbow issues. “It’s exciting to watch every time. You know he’s going to throw hard and strike guys out.

“It never gets old watching him pitch.”

So overwhelming was Kimbrel’s 2012 that the only thing left to worry about in his case was the difficultly he’d have matching himself this season.

Given the often brief lifespan of a closer, working on the presumption that the value of an established closer is overrated and that Kimbrel has nowhere to go but south, “Sports Illustrated” had a suggestion for the Braves in its baseball preview issue. Trade Kimbrel now for a third baseman. The Braves have shown no signs of taking up the magazine’s advice.

On being just 24 and already setting the bar for himself almost impossibly high, Kimbrel concluded, “I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing.

“You always strive to do the best you can. That’s all I can do. I can’t say I want to have the year I had last year. I can’t say I want to have 50 saves and over 100 strikeouts. All I can say is that every time the team gives me the opportunity to go out there and save the game is that I go out there and do it. Then at the end of the year, no matter if the numbers are good, better or worse, if I did my part to contribute, I did my job.”

His is the closer’s outlook on life, one that involves a short memory and a boundless trust in one’s stuff.