Chan Ho Park throws three perfect innings

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Chan Ho Park continued to make a strong case for the final spot in the Dodgers rotation today, pitching three perfect innings in a 7-4 Grapefruit League win over the Baltimore Orioles.

That gave Park, invited to camp as a nonroster player, seven scoreless innings in three spring outings in which he's given up only two hits and two walks.

"I don't compete against anybody. I just compete against the hitters," Park said. "Yes, my goal is to try to make the team. But not in the game. In the game, you've got to get the hitters out. So I try to focus on that.

"I just go one pitch at a time."

With Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda set at the top of the rotation, Park is locked in a tight battle with right-handers Esteban Loaiza (who has given up three runs and six hits in seven innings) and Jason Johnson (six innings, three hits, an unearned run) for the slot Jason Schmidt eventually will take when he returns from shoulder surgery.

Rookie Chin-lung Hu, making his second consecutive start at second base, had two hits, stole a base and scored once, and Andruw Jones added a two-run homer in the eighth to key the offense for the Dodgers, who have won three in a row.

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On to Beijing

Park's next outing will come Saturday in the first of two exhibition games with the San Diego Padres in Beijing. The Dodgers, who will take a team made up largely of minor leaguers on the seven-day trip that begins Tuesday, tweaked their China roster slightly today by opting to leave aching veterans Nomar Garciaparra and Mark Sweeney in Florida.

Garciaparra's left hand is still swollen after being hit by a pitch Friday and Sweeney has a sore left knee. Minor leaguer Kevin Howard will take Garciaparra's spot; no replacement for Sweeney has been named.

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Injury update

As the bulk of the Dodgers team was leaving Vero Beach for today's game in Fort Lauderdale, closer Takashi Saito was testing his strained right calf in a 23-pitch bullpen session, one he finished free of pain or tightness.

Manager Joe Torre said Saito would pitch to live batters in the next couple of days. "Good news for us, good news for him," Torre said.

But Saito, 38, said he remained unsure if he would be ready for opening day because he wasn't sure how his calf would hold up to the workload required to get him ready for the season.