Hiroki Kuroda does one more good turn for the Dodgers

The coming days could be Hiroki Kuroda’s last with the Dodgers.

He is 36 and his neck is hurting again. The Dodgers are out of contention. There seems to be little to no incentive for him to continue.

Kuroda will be a free agent this winter and hasn’t said whether he will remain in the major leagues next season or return to the Hiroshima Carp, for whom he pitched during his first 11 seasons as a professional.

For now, he said he intends to take his next turn in the rotation.

“That’s my intention,” he said.

But if the six innings he pitched in the Dodgers’ 7-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates turn out to be his farewell to American baseball, he will leave as one of the rare high-profile Japanese players to not clash with his foreign employers.

Daisuke Matsuzaka’s philosophical conflicts with the Boston Red Sox regarding training regimens have been well-chronicled.

When Kaz Ishii came to the Dodgers in 2002, he refused to pitch live batting practice in spring training. Once the season started, he defied the team’s wishes by playing catch while his teammates were hitting.

If Kuroda has been anything in his four seasons with the Dodgers, it’s flexible. “He doesn’t seem any different than anyone else,” Manager Don Mattingly said.

Upon reporting to his first spring training with the club in Florida, he said he would let the Dodgers set his throwing schedule.

In Japan, he regularly threw 200- or 300-pitch bullpen sessions on the first day of camp. He threw 30 pitches in his first bullpen session with the Dodgers. “It’s a little scary, but I’ll give it a try,” he said at the time.

His openness to change could explain why he is the only Japanese starting pitcher whose earned-run average has dropped with time. He had a 3.73 ERA as a rookie. That number had dropped to 3.39 by last year and is 3.19 this year.

He enrolled his daughters in a regular English-language school and bought a house in the L.A. area.

The only accommodation he refused to make: He wouldn’t waive his no-trade clause in July, when the Dodgers hoped to unload him to an American League contender for prospects.

Friday night, Kuroda (12-16) didn’t look particularly sharp but held the Pirates to two runs (one earned) over six innings. He struck out seven and walked two.

Kuroda underwent an MRI exam the previous night, which showed his neck problems aren’t as severe as they were in 2009, when a bulging disk forced him to miss the opening round of the playoffs.

“That gave me some peace of mind, but it’s still bothersome,” he said.

He said he isn’t consciously altering his throwing motion, but thinks the pain causes his front shoulder to open up too soon.

Mattingly had Aaron Miles pinch-hit for him in the sixth, leaving him an inning short of the 190-inning mark and a $175,000 bonus.

But the Dodgers blew open the game with four runs in that inning, capped by James Loney’s three-run pinch home run.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com