Stripling and Dodger bats script ideal 7-1 win

LOS ANGELES —— The Dodgers needed a game to reset their lost week and they got it with their 7-1 win over the Brewers on Sunday afternoon. The win snapped a six-game losing streak and moved them back over .500 with a record of 9-8.

Ross Stripling more than delivered what his team needed today. After holding the Brewers scoreless for seven innings, Stripling gave up his only run on a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning.

Stripling finished the longest start of his career completing eight innings with only 88 pitches and he gave up just that one run and four hits. He struck out three and walked one.

Jaime Schultz relieved Stripling and pitched the ninth to finish up the win.

In his morning media scrum, manager Dave Roberts was asked if he could use a normal game, normal offense, normal starting pitching.

“That’d be nice, that would be ideal,” Roberts said, ‘this guy Chacin, could be tough, we’ve seen him a lot, a lot of guys have history.”

Joc Pederson was 3-for-17 against Chacin going into this game; he hit fly ball down the right-field line that curved foul in his first at-bat. Pederson then struck out. His next time up, Pederson hit a high fly ball down the line that dropped a few rows deep in fair territory and the Dodgers extended their lead to 3-0.

Before that, Alex Verdugo put the Dodgers on the board in the first inning when his two-out single scored two runs.

The Dodgers continued to add to their lead in the third inning. Cody Bellinger led off with his second walk of the game. A.J. Pollock then collected his second single of the game. Max Muncy followed with a base hit to score the Dodgers fourth run.

After Verdugo’s dribbler in front of the plate moved the runners to second and third, Chris Taylor dropped a base hit into right field to make it 6-0.

That sent Chacin to the dugout as the Brewers brought in Chase Anderson to finish up the third inning. Stripling did collect a single before Pederson popped out to right to end the inning.

The Dodger scoring ended in the fourth inning but Verdugo added another run in the fifth with his third home run of season that made it 7-0. That would prove to be more than enough on this Sunday.

From the morning

In case you missed it, there were some updates on Rich Hill, Hyun-jin Ryu and Russell Martin today.

Hill will make a rehab start this Wednesday where he’ll pitch approximately 60 pitches and/or four innings.

The Quakes are playing at Lake Elisnore on Wednesday but that is as convenient as Rancho Cucamonga.

Roberts said Ryu will have an “aggressive bullpen” on Monday and as he explained “[Ryu] doesn’t really throw bullpens so something around the 40 pitch mark, use all of his pitches, see how he responds to that will give us a better idea how aggressive we can be with him going forward.”

Finally, Martin is moving better but he’s still day-to-day with no planned baseball activities yet.

Look ahead

Matt Kemp, Yasiel Puig and Kyle Farmer return to Dodger Stadium as the Cincinnati Reds will have a three-game series starting tomorrow night.

It is also MLB’s salute to Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers will have their annual salute to their all-time great.

And if that wasn’t enough, Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to make his first start of the season. Kershaw will be up against right-handed pitcher Luis Castillo. Castillo has pitched very well thus far this season. In 19⅔ innings, he has given up just two runs and five hits. He has struck out 25 against eight walks.

First pitch is at 7:10 p.m.