Stripling shows value as starter, will stay ready

CHICAGO -- Ever been transferred from the job you always wanted to one you hoped was left behind? Ross Stripling just was.

The Dodgers hung on to beat the Cubs, 2-1, on Thursday to avoid a series sweep. Stripling has been the Dodgers’ most consistent starting pitcher to date, but he’s being bumped to make room for the return of Rich Hill from the injured list, and to try to stabilize an erratic bullpen.

This game symbolized Stripling’s struggle for stature. When a teammate challenged the media to ask manager Dave Roberts why Stripling wasn’t allowed to finish the fifth inning of what was at the time a shutout, the teammate was reminded that the manager didn’t let Stripling finish a no-hitter in his first career start, either.

So lifting Stripling from a shutout one out short of qualifying for a win -- with the tying run on third base, two out and Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo coming up for the third time -- wasn’t surprising, not for this team or for a pitcher who also was sent to the bullpen last year one month after appearing in his first All-Star Game.

Stripling sees the bigger picture, or at least he said he does.

“I’ll go down there if that’s what they want, and [I'll] get after guys out of the bullpen and get outs there and just be ready,” said Stripling. “You want to leave a good impression in their minds, coaching staff, front office, so when another opportunity comes up, my name’s in the hat as much as anyone else. It’s inevitable that it will.”

Roberts said he lifted Stripling at 76 pitches for a better matchup, even though Roberts also revealed he stayed away from using Dylan Floro because Floro was sore from being struck on the back of the right shoulder by a batted ball during batting practice on Tuesday.

Roberts tapped winner Pedro Báez (2-1) to get out of Stripling’s fifth-inning jam, and Baez overpowered the Cubs by striking out the side in the sixth. Caleb Ferguson escaped a mess by getting Ben Zobrist on a double play into the shift, ending the seventh inning. Then Roberts gave struggling Joe Kelly a vote of confidence by bringing him in for a scoreless eighth inning to set up Kenley Jansen’s eighth save, which he converted despite allowing a two-out homer to Albert Almora Jr., the third homer Jansen has allowed in 12 2/3 innings.

Roberts said he wasn’t going to let Stripling face Rizzo a third time and was committed to using Baez for more than three outs, so he made the move. Stripling didn’t fight Roberts about coming out of the no-hitter a year after Tommy John surgery, and he didn’t fight him on Thursday.

“I’d like to think I’d be one of those guys, but I’m just kind of not,” Stripling said of pitchers that resist giving up the ball. “To me, it seemed his mind was made up when he got out there for Baez to face Bryant. I said, ‘Sounds good,’ and handed him the ball. I’ve never been a guy to tell a manager what he should do. I’m a team player. That’s the decision he made and it worked out and we got the win.”

The Dodgers led on a fifth-inning run after Alex Verdugo, starting against lefty Jon Lester, led off with a triple and scored on shortstop Javier Baez’s fielding error. Cody Bellinger’s sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the eighth inning provided an insurance run that proved decisive after Almora’s homer.

With Julio Urias available on Friday and Stripling recovered in three or four days, the Dodgers are about to have a pitching staff at full strength for the first time this season.

“It’s really important,” Roberts said. “You look at the ’pen, and with Julio [and Stripling], you have two guys who can give you length, can pitch in leverage. As far as the staff in general, you’ve just added two guys that can get righties and lefties out. It just makes our staff that much better.”