Park makes push to be fifth starter

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Chan Ho Park continued to make a strong push for the final spot in the Dodgers’ rotation Monday, 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 has 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.

“He certainly hasn’t done anything to hurt his chances,” Manager Joe Torre said of Park. “He couldn’t be much better than that.”

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

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 today, tweaked their China roster slightly Monday 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 Sweeney’s spot; no replacement for Garciaparra has been named.

Injury update

Takashi Saito tested his strained right calf in a 23-pitch bullpen session in Vero Beach, finishing free of pain or tightness.

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.

“Even if I feel healed right now, getting to the next stage takes time,” he said. “I don’t want to rush.”

Penny and reliever Rudy Seanez also got in some work during a minor league intrasquad game on a back field at Vero Beach, with Penny throwing 57 pitches, giving up one run and one hit, and Seanez facing six batters, giving up two hits, a walk and hitting a man.

Around the horn

Andy LaRoche had two pins surgically inserted at the base of his right thumb to stabilize the ligament he tore Friday. Dr. Steve Shin performed the operation in Los Angeles and LaRoche is scheduled to undergo a second procedure in three weeks to remove the pins, after which he’ll begin a rehabilitation program. Doctors say LaRoche will be sidelined until at least mid-May. . . . The Dodgers optioned and reassigned pitchers Mario Alvarez, James McDonald, Jonathan Meloan and Justin Orenduff to minor league camp and unconditionally released veteran left-hander Tom Martin. Martin, 37, who appeared in 376 games with seven teams in an 11-year big-league career, gave up seven hits and two earned runs in 3 2/3 innings this spring.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com