Third basemen closer to return

The Dodgers, who started the season with three third basemen on the disabled list and a rookie with no big league experience in the starting lineup, may soon be getting two of those veterans back.

Andy LaRoche took two rounds of batting practice and threw a baseball Friday, the first time he has done either since tearing a ligament in his right thumb during a March 7 spring training game. And Nomar Garciaparra, who sustained a fractured bone in his right hand in that same exhibition, is expected to leave on a minor league rehab assignment this morning.

“No pain at all,” said LaRoche, who played catch with trainer Stan Conte between hitting sessions. “I want to stay out here all day. [But] I’ve still got to stay patient. Nature still has to take its course.”

LaRoche, who was competing with Garciaparra for the starting job at third when he was hurt, was expected to be out two months after surgery on his thumb. But his rehabilitation is about two weeks ahead of schedule -- which is good news for LaRoche, who has seen Blake DeWitt play well in his absence.

“Brad Penny is calling me Wally Pipp,” LaRoche said, referring to the former New York Yankee star who sat out a game in 1925, then watched Lou Gehrig start the next 2,130 in his place. “But obviously it wasn’t my job to lose.”

Garciaparra is even closer to returning after going through his normal pregame routine of hitting and fielding for the fourth time Friday.

“I am excited,” said Garciaparra, who is expected to play for the Dodgers’ triple-A Las Vegas team in Sacramento tonight. “I want to get in some games. I wanted to be back yesterday.”

Manager Joe Torre said the six-time All-Star could return to the Dodgers as early as next week, although Garciaparra refuses to subscribe to any timetable.

“I can’t predict the future. I don’t like doing that,” he said. “The way I like to do it is we say, ‘Let’s go to the next step.’ The next step is to go get in some games. And we’ll see how it responds.

“There’s going to be some pain. There’s going to be soreness. I just want it to feel good enough to be out there. I wasn’t going to wait until where it was pain free.”

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Reliever Scott Proctor, the Dodgers’ representative to the players association, said the stiffened drug policy the union and Major League Baseball agreed to Friday will help restore public confidence in the sport.

“We’re all here to try to clean the game up and make it an even playing field,” he said. “This is the first step [toward] getting some credibility back with the media and the fans.”

The agreement calls for more frequent testing for performance-enhancing substances and gives the program’s outside administrator more authority. But it also gives amnesty to everyone implicated in December’s Mitchell report.

“Any step toward moving on and getting this behind us is what we want to do,” Proctor said. “We were all in agreement after spring training that changes needed to be made.”

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Infielder Angel Chavez, who made the Dodgers’ opening day roster but was designated for assignment four days later, accepted his appointment to Las Vegas and made his first start Thursday night. Chavez spent most of the last week in Reno, where his wife Unland gave birth to the couple’s second child, a boy.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com