Red-hot Park Chan-ho will start against his nemesis San Francisco Giants and former Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito. / Korea Times File By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter

A revitalized Park Chan-ho of the Los Angeles Dodgers has earned another spot start Saturday (Sunday morning in Korean Standard Time) against the state rival San Francisco Giants.

Dodgers manager Joe Torre said Thursday that Park will start the game at AT&T Park in San Francisco instead of ace Brad Penny, who was scheduled to pitch for the team, which is 1 1/2 games behind the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League (NL) West division.

Penny, a 30-year-old hard thrower, has been on the disabled list (DL) since June 15 due to a sore shoulder.

Park, who is 4-2 with a 2.45 ERA this season, has been impressive in his previous three starts, posting a 1-0 record with a 1.20 ERA while striking out 19 over 15 innings. A performance last week of tossing six scoreless innings against the American League (AL) West perennial powerhouse Los Angeles Angels was his best of the year.

Park, a 15-year veteran, has faced the Giants on 23 career occasions, including 21 starts, going 7-8 with a 5.09 ERA. The right-handed hurler gave up 23 home runs in those outings, including eight homers to former Giant Barry Bonds, which are the most home runs he has allowed to a single player in his career.

To make Park's situation worse, he has not performed well at San Francisco's ballpark, capturing only one win against three losses and his ERA there is 7.14. He also surrendered seven dingers at the park, where he picked up a win on its opening day on April 11, 2000 and allowed Bonds to hit his 71st and 72nd homers on Oct. 5, 2001 on his way to a record of 73 that season.

However, it is a silver lining that there are only two batters who have career batting averages of at least .300 against Park in the Giants' current lineup ― Ray Durham and Aaron Rowand.

Durham has batted .316 (6-for-19) with one home run, while Rowand is hitting .385 (5-for-13) against the South Korean pitcher, but has failed to produce a long ball with only two RBIs.

The Giants, who rank third in the division, 1 1/2 games behind Los Angeles, will go with lefty Barry Zito. The former American League (AL) Cy Young winner, who signed a $126 million contract in 2006 after spending seven seasons with the Oakland Athletics, is 3-12 this season and his ERA is 5.99 in 17 appearances.

Zito, who earned a label ``free-agent mega-bust'' after producing 14 wins in two years with the Giants, suffered an eight-game losing streak and still has difficulty approaching his old form, which earned him three All-Star berths.

Torre, who said the Dodgers would go with a six-man pitching rotation last week, sent prospect Clayton Kershaw to Double-A Wednesday, and should Park stay on course, he could gun for a slot in the rotation until the All-Star break.

ksw@koreatimes.co.kr