LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers had a fairly busy weekend in their continuing effort to piece together a rotation without Jason Schmidt.

In relatively short order, the team demoted Hong-Chih Kuo, promoted D.J. Houlton and moved Mark Hendrickson back into the starting rotation.

Current plans are for Hendrickson, whose Wednesday start against Atlanta will be his only one before the All-Star break, to stay in the rotation, although the order of the rotation is likely to be revised after the break, said manager Grady Little.

Hendrickson, with a 4.08 ERA, has all five decisions and a 4.81 ERA in eight starts this year, with opponents batting .297. In 11 games as a reliever, his ERA is 2.84 with opponents batting .202.

"He's been good for us out of the bullpen in two occasions this year," said Little, "and he was good starting. We feel confident putting him back in. He's done whatever we've asked."

Houlton, 6-9 with a 5.18 ERA with the Dodgers in 2005, is slotted into the long-relief role. He had an undistinguished 2006 season with triple-A Las Vegas (9-11, 5.60 ERA) but was dramatically better this year: 5-4 with a 3.90 ERA. He credits a change in attitude as the primary reason for the improvement.

"I was actually having fun down there," he said Sunday, before pitching a scoreless ninth inning in a 5-0 win over San Diego. "The year before, last year, I wasn't having any fun. I dreaded going to the field.

"It's so hot, it's a tough place to play. The conditions — the wind's always blowing out, the ground is hard, the conditions are just tough. It's something I had to battle mentally and get right."

The adjustment was something he eventually figured out on his own, he said.

"I wasn't enjoying it. It's obviously something you've got to enjoy doing.

I think this year the change in my attitude is the best thing that happened to me."

It wasn't the sole change, though. The Dodgers also worked with Houlton's delivery this spring — "Kind of staying back, slow my mechanics a little bit, and getting the ball down in the zone instead of everything up," he said — and Las Vegas pitching coach Ken Howell had continued to focus on that work.

"That definitely helped me," Houlton said, adding that one pitch in particular had seemed to benefit from the changes.

"My curveball's a little better," he said. "It's more of a strikeout pitch now. To me it is; I have a lot more confidence in it. It's got a little better bite; that's what the hitters are showing me this year, down in Triple-A. We'll see how it works up here."

Little said Houlton "can give us some help in the bullpen with innings, and good quality innings. He's got that ability to jump in and start games if we need, also."

Kuo, meanwhile, returns to Las Vegas after going 1-4 with a 7.42 ERA in eight games. He'll replace Houlton in the rotation for the 51s and get what Little says he needs most: work.

"When you look at his whole career, he hasn't had that many innings pitched in professional baseball," Little said, even before the team announced Kuo's demotion. "He's kind of been thrown into the fire, last year a little bit, this year a little bit, with still very few innings pitched in professional baseball.

"He's been through his share of arm troubles, but we feel like those are behind him. So he needs to pitch. He needs to gain experience. I think that will be good for him."

For the record, Kuo entered the season with 106 professional games and 214 innings in six professional seasons. By way of comparison, Chad Billingsley — whose seven shutout innings Sunday offered hope the Dodgers have shored up one spot in the rotation — entered the season with 96 games and 495 innings' experience in four professional seasons. Houlton, in six professional seasons, had been in 170 games and thrown 838 2/3 innings.

Little remained positive about Kuo's long-term prospects, even though he went 0-3 with a 14.81 ERA in his last three appearances.

"He's got an awfully good arm," said Little, "and we still feel like he's got a good future, so we've got to be real careful about the way we react to a few bad games here."

— David Lassen's baseball notebook appears Tuesdays.