updated 11:28 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2006

WASHINGTON - Facing a fellow lefty that he admires, and pitching against a team that made him a first-round draft pick in 2000, Billy Traber was at his best.

Traber outdueled Tom Glavine on Friday night, pitching into the eighth inning and allowing only four hits to lead the Washington Nationals past New York 2-1, ending the Mets’ five-game winning streak.

Just back up from the minors, Traber (2-1) allowed Paul Lo Duca’s first homer since May 13 in the first inning and then settled down to earn his eighth career major league win — 279 fewer than Glavine owns.

The secret to Traber’s success?

“Let them hit the ball,” he said. “I can’t really be scared of contact. That’s the only way I’m going to go deep into a game. All I want to do is chew up innings.”

That’s exactly what Washington’s weary bullpen needed him to do. As it was, after Traber left, the Mets put runners at second and third in the eighth against Jon Rauch, but Lo Duca struck out. And in the ninth, closer Chad Cordero’s 21st save didn’t come until after he hit a batter and gave up a single.

Mets manager Willie Randolph called it a “weird kind of game where you feel like you’re going to win it. You get a lot of men on base, but you can’t that one real big hit.”

It was Washington’s second win in 35 games in which it scored fewer than three runs.

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Glavine (12-5) was almost as good as Traber. But the two-time Cy Young Award winner gave up a two-run double in the second to No. 8 hitter Brian Schneider — when Glavine said he was trying to pitch around him with Traber on deck.

The left-handed Schneider reached for an outside pitch and pushed it into right field.

“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” Schneider said.

Glavine threw a season-high 123 pitches in six innings and has won only one of his last nine starts.

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