Clayton Kershaw flirts with no-hitter before Dodgers hold off Diamondbacks, 4-3

The ball squirted to his right, and Cody Bellinger had a fraction of a second to decide. Break to his right and the pitcher would have to cover first base. Break to cover the base and the ball might dribble into the outfield for a hit.

“No man’s land,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday.

Clayton Kershaw had not given up a hit. It was the seventh inning. Of course Bellinger would break to his right.

He did. He never did get to the ball hit by Chris Owings. The second baseman, Logan Forsythe, got there first. Kershaw had scrambled to first base, in time to catch the throw, but not in time to tag the bag before the runner could.

The no-hitter was over. If Bellinger had covered the bag, the no-hitter probably would have remained intact.

The sellout crowd would not be sitting in on history. The fans applauded Kershaw. He did not acknowledge their salute. He still had work to do.

He gave up that infield single and, later in the inning, an outfield single. He had more work to do, completing that inning, exhausted and otherwise.

When it was all over, Kershaw had put a game’s cushion between his team and its closest pursuer. The Dodgers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-3, with a home run from Justin Turner, three hits from Yasmani Grandal and those seven shutout innings from Kershaw padding the home team’s lead to 31/2 games in the National League West.

The Diamondbacks scored all three runs on one swing in the ninth inning, a home run by Daniel Descalso against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen after Brandon Morrow gave up two hits.

The Dodgers are 16-2 when Kershaw starts. On this night, he struck out 11. He became the first 13-game winner in baseball, and the first Dodgers pitcher to win 13 before the All-Star break since Orel Hershiser in … wait for it … 1988.

Kershaw lowered his ERA to 2.19, and he had extended his streak of consecutive innings without giving up an earned run to 20, all since that game when he gave up four home runs.

“You guys kept telling me I was giving up so many homers,” Kershaw told reporters after the game, “so I tried to stop doing it.”

Turner, celebrating his lead in the race for the final spot on the NL All-Star roster, nearly hit two home runs.

In the first inning, he launched a ball off the top of the left-field wall. It caromed back into play — a long single, but one that drove in Forsythe with the game’s first run.

In the third inning, Turner left no doubt, drilling a ball over the center-field wall for his eighth home run of the season. Later in the inning, Chris Taylor doubled, Grandal singled him home, and the Dodgers had a 3-0 lead. Grandal also singled home Taylor in the eighth inning.

Kershaw probably would not have completed a no-hitter. He was at 92 pitches when he started the seventh inning, at 107 pitches three batters into the inning, when it would have been over had Bellinger covered first base on that infield single.

Roberts, who pulled Rich Hill and Ross Stripling from no-hitters last season, said he would have removed Kershaw as well.

“To think about him getting to 130 pitches doesn’t make sense,” Roberts said. “After that infield hit, there was a little sigh of relief from me.”

Kershaw has not thrown more than 118 pitches this season. On Tuesday, he finished with 117. It might not have been a historic night for the home team, but it was a very good one.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

Twitter: @BillShaikin