"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."