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.

So, the Dodgers have made their decision, and the choice looks like it’s Dave Roberts.

Cool.

After a month of going through almost a dozen candidates, the Dodgers chose a man who is a former player, is relatively young, and has experience in their Division. In Roberts, the team selected a manager was was born in Okinawa, Japan, raised in northern San Diego County, and spent his college years at UCLA.

Here’s a solid piece Howard Cole of Forbes wrote a few days ago, lauding Roberts as the right candidate. It’s worth reading.

Here was my conspiracy theory — a moot point now, but worth thinking about:

Kapler was always the guy — the Dodgers just wanted to interview LOTS of other guys to get some insight about how other teams do business. You don’t think Kapler wanted insight into how the Cubs (Dave Martinez), Padres (Bud Black, Phil Nevin), and Diamondbacks (Kirk Gibson) are going about their business? From the Dodgers perspective, I always thought they were just trying to get as much info about other organizations as possible while casting a wide net.

While Kapler wasn’t the guy in the end, the Dodgers’ top brass I’m sure got more information than simply what kind of a manager the individuals would make. The beauty of a wide net is that you get to ask several people attached to (or recently a part of) other organizations lots of questions about how they prefer operating and about what their experience has been like.

Maybe I’m giving Dodgers brass too much credit for being smarter or savvier than they are. Maybe not.

OK, my silly, non-supported conspiracy theory out of the way, let’s talk a little more about the new skipper.

The primary, most tangible variable that Roberts will be judged for right away might not be something that’s in his control at all.

That variable — Yasiel Puig. It’s not just about how Roberts interacts interpersonally with Puig. The entire clubhouse, along with the majority of Dodger fans, will be paying close attention to how Puig is handled. Whether Puig ever gets back close to the form of his rookie campaign will, fairly or not, be something upon which his new manager’s success is measured.

With Roberts’ hire, and with every move the Friedman-led group makes, the Dodgers become more and more Friedman’s. I don’t want to get too hyperbolic and call it “Make or Break” like the LA Times’ Bill Shaikin did, but every time this organization makes a key decision like who their manager will be, it becomes more and more fair to judge the whole organization based on results. Having a solid process is awesome. Great results are better.

Now, about that pitching staff… .