Clayton Kershaw flirts with no-hitter as Dodgers blank Rockies

J.D. Martinez made some history, and Clayton Kershaw flirted with it in Coors Field on Tuesday night, the Dodgers slugger becoming the 156th major leaguer to hit 300 home runs with a two-homer game and the veteran left-hander making a spirited bid to throw a no-hitter in baseball’s most hitter-friendly park.

Kershaw settled for six innings of one-hit ball in a 5-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies, but that hit didn’t come until there were two outs in the bottom of the sixth, when No. 9 batter Brenton Doyle rifled a one-hopper just beyond the reach of third baseman Max Muncy and into left field for a single.

Kershaw picked off Doyle and faced the minimum 18 batters through six stress-free innings, but manager Dave Roberts still pulled the three-time National League Cy Young Award winner with his pitch count at 79.

Brusdar Graterol, Ryan Brasier, Phil Bickford and Evan Phillips covered the final three innings, Phillips relieving Bickford with the bases loaded in the ninth and retiring cleanup man Elias Diaz on a fly ball at the wall in left-center field to close out the Dodgers’ fifth win in six games.

The Dodgers took a 2-0 lead when they loaded the bases with one out in the second inning and James Outman (RBI single) and Rojas (sacrifice fly) drove in runs. Martinez did the rest of the damage, hitting a two-run homer off starter Connor Seabold in the third and a solo shot off reliever Brad Hand in the sixth.

Martinez, one of the team’s hottest hitters in late May and early June, had gone cold since hitting his 298th homer in Philadelphia on June 10, batting .163 with a .459 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and one RBI in his previous 12 games.

But the designated hitter warmed to the 90-degree temperatures in Colorado, driving an up-and-away fastball from Seabold 391 feet to right field for homer No. 299 and a first-pitch slider from Hand 384 to left field for No. 300, his 17th and 18th homers of the season and 21st multihomer game of his career.

Kershaw entered with an 11-8 record and 4.82 ERA and had allowed 21 homers in 26 career starts in Coors Field, the worst ERA he’s had in any opposing park in which he’s made more than one start and the most homers he’s allowed in a visiting stadium.

But it was clear from the start Tuesday night that neither high altitude nor the Rockies lineup would bother him. Kershaw breezed through three innings on 39 pitches, striking out two and yielding nothing remotely close to a hit.

But the Dodgers’ defense was tested in the fourth. With one out, Ezequiel Tovar hit a looping line drive that Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas made a diving catch of to his left, inches above the ground.

The left-handed-hitting Ryan McMahon followed with a grounder to the left side that Rojas and Muncy nearly collided on, but Rojas gloved the ball while avoiding Muncy and threw to first to end the inning.

Diaz ended Kershaw’s perfect-game bid when he took a 3-and-1 fastball above the zone for a walk to open the bottom of the fifth. Kershaw got C.J. Cron to bounce into a 6-4-3 double play, and Randal Grichuk capped a nine-pitch at-bat with what appeared to be a routine grounder to shortstop.

But one of the quirks of Coors Field in the early summer is that the sun sets just beyond the left-field corner, often wreaking havoc for first basemen on grounders to the left side.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman got caught in this blind spot, but he was able to shield the sun with his bare hand and glove the ball while nearly falling backward to end the inning.

The no-hitter remained intact in the sixth with an assist from Muncy, who gloved Elehuris Montero’s 105-mph one-hop smash and threw to first for the first out, Freeman deftly lunging to catch the high throw while keeping his right foot on the bag.

But Muncy couldn’t make a sliding stop to his left of Doyle’s hit, ending Kershaw’s bid to join former Dodgers right-hander Hideo Nomo as the only pitchers to throw no-hitters in Coors Field, Nomo’s coming on Sept. 17, 1996.

Kershaw improved to 10-4 with a 2.55 ERA