Bullpen shines as Dodgers move to 2-0

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has to be smiling after the team has looked relaxed in winning their first two games of the season. By Malingering

Last year was weird in a lot of ways. One weird narrative went that the Dodgers’ bullpen was kind of an unreliable mess. While they probably weren’t as bad as that, the narrative was that they couldn’t be counted-upon outside of Kenley Jansen.

Again, small sample size notwithstanding, the pen looks pretty good early-on. Pedro Baez, Chris Hatcher, and Kenley Jansen each struck out two Padres in an inning of work each and Jansen gave up the Padres’ only hit in the final third of the game.

What’s fun is that these are the same guys who were in the bullpen last year for the Dodgers. Baez, who is 28 this year, pitched 51 innings, striking out 60 batters and walking 11. After a rocky start, Hatcher struck out 45 batters in 39 innings of work in 2015, walking 13.

Listen, I’m not saying they’re going to be perfect this season, but when the bullpen seems much more calmed-down and solid this season, let’s not go too nutty trying to find out a specific reason. My suspicion is that the bullpen, as a group, caught some bad breaks this year. Maybe this is the season they turn those breaks around. We know how important bullpens can be and many fans also suspect that Don Mattingly may not have been the most adept decision-maker when it came to pitchers and maybe Dave Roberts get a little something better about this group.

Or, perhaps, they were always pretty good baseball players and we just wouldn’t or couldn’t recognize it as last year went on.

With two strong performances, the Dodgers are now 2-0 on the season.

Kazmir sharp

Scott Kazmir looked really sharp in his Dodgers debut. For as long as he’s been pitching, Kazmir has never been in the National League. Pitching to hitters regularly has to be a welcomed change for the lefty.

Here are highlights from that Dodgers game:

Syndergaard a freaking Viking magician

Noah Syndergaard is a freaking magician. He throws a sinker that clocks-in faster than his fastball. His slider is mid-90’s. How does anybody ever hit him? He’s on my All-MLB.TV team this year. I’ll be posting that team sometime soon.