LOS ANGELES -- There was one guy Los Angeles Dodgers rookie starter Ross Stripling did not want to beat him Monday. That one guy beat him.

The Miami Marlins pulled off a 3-2 victory in the opener of a four-game series as Giancarlo Stanton drive in a pair of runs with a fourth-inning home run and a fifth-inning double.

“We were just trying to keep him off-balance,” Stripling said. “The elevated curveball he hit out, it wasn’t a great pitch, but I wasn’t expecting him to be all over it starting an inning like that. We were keeping it away from him. We walked him in the first and then the weird at-bat in the fifth.”

Just how weird? Stanton was basically a zombie, who couldn’t be put down. First there was the pitch low and away from Stripling that looked like strike three, yet was called a ball. Then there was Stanton’s foul ball down the first-base side that Yasmani Grandal could not get underneath for the out.

Yes, that Grandal, the catcher, who was giving regular first baseman Adrian Gonzalez his first break of the season. The game has a way of finding guys who are out of position.

On the very next pitch after Grandal could not come away with the foul ball along the railing, Stanton drilled a double into right-center and the Marlins had the lead for good.

Stripling was far from sharp, and the Marlins were hitting the ball hard off him the third time through the lineup, even with their outs. But in his fourth career start, Stripling still managed to limit the damage, turning it over to what figured to be a tired bullpen, only to see four pitchers combine for 3⅔ hitless innings.

“I thought that he threw well,” manager Dave Roberts said. “There really is not a lot to think about this game as far as Ross gave everything he could, and for Ross and the pen to limit those guys to three runs, where the state of our pen is, we just couldn’t put hits together. That’s the bottom line.”

Without an assist from the altitude in Denver, like the Dodgers got Sunday, there was no rally. They did connect for a pair of home runs from Yasiel Puig and Trayce Thompson. But those both came in the fourth inning, while all the other frames were dry.

In his four starts, Stripling has a 3.22 ERA, but one loss and no victories to show for it. When Roberts let Stripling hit for himself in the fifth inning at 95 pitches, it sure looked like the manager was trying to get his starter one more inning so the offense could potentially rally and get him his first victory.

Afterward, Puig was in no mood to talk about his home run, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t do enough for the team to pull off the victory. His manager sounded a little more positive.

“We’re going to score more than two runs -- we’re going to get going,” Roberts said. “But for where we’re at, we gave up three runs, it was a pretty good night for Ross and the pen.”

The bullpen is now expected to catch a break Tuesday with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. Assuming that Scott Kazmir's sore left wrist is fine to make his Wednesday start, reliever Zach Lee would be the leading candidate to be sent back to Triple-A Oklahoma City on Tuesday. Los Angeles carried an eighth reliever during its trip to hitter-friendly Coors Field last weekend.

A day after his mixed-bag game in Colorado, Thompson had only positives. Although he did have to make a diving catch in shallow center field after getting a poor read on the popup and initially breaking backward.

It was Thompson’s second consecutive start, this one in center field after starting in left on Sunday. What happens to his playing time moving forward remains in question. Carl Crawford is expected to come off the disabled list Tuesday, adding to the outfield logjam.

Thompson knows that the sooner he can adapt to sporadic playing time, the better it is, but it sure did look like he was more comfortable in his second consecutive day of seeing pitches. He also had a single to left field to go along with his home run.

“Trayce is a heck of a baseball player,” Roberts said. “He put some good at-bats together. It was good to see him hit a homer and he had three, four good at-bats tonight. He made that great diving play in center field and saved us a run right there. He played both sides of the baseball.”