LOS ANGELES — Hiroki Kuroda wasn't as upset about losing his bid for baseball history as he would have been had he given up runs in a tight game.

Kuroda took a perfect game into the eighth inning and settled for a one-hitter, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 3-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves last night.

The right-hander retired the first 21 batters before Mark Teixeira lined his 70th pitch into the right field corner for a double leading off the eighth.

"My main concern was that he was the leadoff hitter in that inning, it was a 2-2 count and I didn't want to walk him because I didn't have that big of a lead," Kuroda said through a translator. "I was concentrating more on not allowing any runs. I wasn't really nervous, but I felt the pressure from the fans because they were expecting something big."

Kuroda (5-6) was attempting to become the first Dodger to throw a no-hitter since countryman Hideo Nomo on Sept. 17, 1996, 9-0 at Colorado.

Kuroda, 33, threw 91 pitches and struck out six in a game that lasted just 2 hours and 3 minutes.

"We don't want to have a perfect game thrown against us, but Kuroda was great tonight — probably the best pitching performance we've seen all year," Teixeira said. "He probably made one mistake all night, and I just got lucky enough to put a good swing on it."

Jose Campillo (3-4) took a one-hitter into the fifth before the Dodgers scored their runs. The right-hander walked James Loney to open the inning, and Nomar Garciaparra hit his second homer of the season one out later.

Campillo allowed three runs and five hits over seven innings in his Dodger Stadium debut.