Hiroki Kuroda fills in blanks for Dodgers
From the time Hiroki Kuroda and Hisanori Takahashi were teenagers, they frequently crossed paths.
Their collegiate teams belonged to the same league. They faced each other as professionals in Japan, Kuroda pitching for the small-market Hiroshima Carp and Takahashi the big-money Tokyo Giants.
They met again Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, not as the stars they were in their homeland, but as two pitchers trying to lift their teams out of ruts.
The result was one familiar to them: Kuroda won.
Kuroda went eight shutout innings in the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory over the New York Mets, who lost for the 10th time in 12 games.
Kuroda improved to 5-0 in the seven games he and Takahashi have gone head to head as starting pitchers as professional ballplayers, limiting the Mets to five hits and a walk.
“Is that right?” Manager Joe Torre said. “I’m glad we kept his streak alive.”
The shutout was the Dodgers’ second in as many days, as Kuroda followed Chad Billingsley’s shutout that ended a six-game losing streak. Hong-Chih Kuo got the save.
“Two good performances in a row,” Matt Kemp said. “Kuroda came out and kept the ball down and kept runners off base. Did his job tonight.”
Takahashi was bad in his recent weeks, as he was charged with six or more runs in three of his four previous starts. But as awful as Takahashi was, Mets Manager Jerry Manuel kept him in the rotation so that he wouldn’t have to start the even more awful Oliver Perez.
But Takahashi managed to make this game interesting.
Only two runs were charged to him over seven innings, the first on a first-inning double by Kemp that drove in Jamey Carroll and the second on a seventh-inning solo home run by Kemp.
“In my first at-bat, he left a fastball up and I got on top of it and I drove it to right field,” Kemp said. “He hung a changeup my third at-bat and I took advantage of his mistake and made something happen.”
Kuroda also credited catcher Russell Martin with making something happen, pointing to the attempted base stealers that Martin threw out in the first and fourth innings.
“Those were two huge plays,” he said.
But Kuroda also made some huge pitches, particularly in the fifth inning when the Mets put runners on the corners with one out.
Kuroda struck out Josh Thole, then intentionally walked Luis Castillo to face Takahashi.
The brash Takahashi playfully pointed his bat in Kuroda’s direction when he stepped into the batter’s box, only to ground into an inning-ending forceout.
Kuroda was amused by Takahashi’s antics in the batter’s box because it defied Japanese social convention. Because Kuroda was a year ahead of Takahashi in school, he holds “senpai” status over Takahashi in Japan’s seniority-based social system.
“If I lost to him, I don’t know what he would have said,” Kuroda said, laughing.
While Takahashi addresses Kuroda as “Kuroda-san,” the Japanese equivalent of “Mr. Kuroda,” he said he wouldn’t hold him to another social convention when they dine together later this week.
That custom calls for the younger Takahashi to hold his glass lower when the two of them touch glasses during a toast.
“He’s only two months younger than I am,” Kuroda explained. “If the Japanese school year ran the same way it does in the Unites States, we would have been in the same grade.”
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