Park Not in Control as Much as He’d Like

JUPITER, Fla. —  Chan Ho Park didn’t allow a hit in six innings against the St. Louis Cardinals Saturday at Roger Dean Stadium, but he wasn’t smiling when he was finished.

OK, so it was only a spring training game.

The Cardinals managed to get two hits against Dave Mlicki, who finished up in relief, but the Dodgers hung on for a 1-0 victory.

The problem for Park was that he was too busy agonizing over the base-on-balls column to get any satisfaction from the hit column. After giving up four walks in 17 innings this spring, Park had five Saturday.

“I’m not happy,” he said. “I pitched a no-hitter. So what? I didn’t expect that kind of a game. So many walks. The ball was moving so much and I don’t know why. I feel really bad about the walks.

“I felt like I was off balance and I missed the first pitch a lot. It’s important for me to get that first pitch.”

Dodger Manager Davey Johnson didn’t seem overly concerned.

“He had a rough start,” Johnson said. “It seemed like he was fighting himself a little bit, but he straightened it out.”

Straightened it out enough to also get five strikeouts, giving him 22 in 23 innings.

Park also scored the only run in the sixth inning. He got aboard on an error by Mark McGwire and subsequently scored on a throwing error by the Cardinal first baseman.

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The spring is more about lessons learned than statistics earned. Park learned a lesson in the third inning that he won’t forget in the regular season.

He threw a changeup to McGwire that baseball’s single-season home-run king jumped on and smacked nearly to the center field wall before Devon White caught up with it.

“He hit a bomb,” Park said. “I know I can’t throw him that pitch during the season.”

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Park wasn’t the only one struggling.

“We seemed flat,” Johnson said. “This really felt like the dog days. The players feel like they are ready to play. [They’re wondering,] ‘Why are we still down here?’ ”

Actually, the players know the answer all too well. There are four more exhibition games in Florida and seven overall before the dog days of spring turn into the meaningful days of the regular season.

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McGwire, coming off his 70-home run season, has already had a huge impact on the Cardinals’ attendance before the club even gets to St. Louis.

When the team trained in St. Petersburg, Fla., it would never sell out more than two or three home games. Last year, the Cardinals’ first in Jupiter, they sold out six times.

This season, with McGwire as the featured attraction, they have sold out 14 of their 17 games.

The first 2 1/2 weeks of the spring, McGwire blocked out three hours every other day to handle the heavy load of media requests.

Since then, the requests have returned to normal and so has McGwire’s daily routine.

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Catcher Todd Hundley had no pain in his elbow after his two-inning debut behind the plate Friday. Johnson gave Hundley Saturday off and plans to start him today when the Dodgers play the Atlanta Braves at Holman Stadium in Vero Beach.