Kuroda takes the loss

PHOENIX -- The way Hiroki Kuroda remembered the game, one pitch was responsible for the Dodgers’ loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday: the first pitch he made to Eric Byrnes with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth.

Byrnes singled to left and drove in two runs, giving the Diamondbacks a 4-3 lead that would hold and handing Kuroda his first defeat in the majors. Kuroda gave up four runs (two earned) and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings, striking out four.

“I could’ve started out by throwing him a ball out of the zone,” Kuroda said. “I have to treat every pitch with greater care.”

That was often the way Kuroda had to pitch in his 11 seasons in Japan for the small-market Hiroshima Carp. The situation he faced Wednesday was quite familiar to him, his team reeling from back-to-back losses and the lineup failing to post many runs on the board.

But Kuroda refused to make the comparison.

“I don’t think in any way that the Dodgers’ lineup is bad,” he said. “We’re fighting as a team. We need to help each out. When the team isn’t hitting, the pitcher has to do more. I’m sure there will be times when the lineup helps me out.”

Kuroda retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, looking in the first three innings the way he did in his first start of the season five days earlier in San Diego, when he gave up one run in seven innings. But he threw 26 pitches in the fourth, when a throwing error by James Loney led to two Diamondbacks runs.

Kuroda threw 24 pitches in the sixth, when he was pulled after giving up the hit to Byrnes.

“I didn’t feel like I was hit that hard,” he said. “It was more a case of where I suddenly realized that things had piled up.”

Manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt pointed to Kuroda’s increased pitch count as the reason behind the trouble he encountered. Kuroda threw 77 pitches in his major league debut and 108 on Wednesday.

“More than anything, he got into deeper counts,” Honeycutt said. “But overall, I still think he was sharp.”

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With Andruw Jones starting the game on the bench, Juan Pierre started in left field. Matt Kemp was in center and Andre Ethier in right.

Pierre was two for three and raised his average from .067 to .167. He doubled to right in the second inning to drive in Blake DeWitt for the Dodgers’ first run of the game.

“I’ve been swinging the bat well,” Pierre said. “Sometimes you hit it right at them, sometimes you don’t. I missed them today.”

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Loney hit a home run in the sixth, making him the only player in the majors to hit safely in his first nine games of the season. Loney has hit safely in 17 of his last 18 games dating to last season. . . . The 23 runs the Dodgers gave up to the Diamondbacks are the most they’ve given up in a three-game series since they gave up 24 runs against the San Diego Padres on July 24-26, 2006.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com