Years from now, Charley Steiner said, when he recalls one of the greatest pitching performances in major league history, he will first remember Clayton Kershaw the hitter. In the bottom of the eighth inning Wednesday night, when he came to bat with an eight-run lead, Kershaw, the ace of the Los Angeles Dodgers, competed with everything he had.

“He grounds routinely to the shortstop, and he’s sprinting every step of the way to the bag,” Steiner, a Dodgers broadcaster, said Thursday. “And I’m thinking, ‘Who on earth could possibly be wired in such a way?’ He’s three outs and one error away from a perfect game, and there is no governor on his engine.”

Kershaw finished off the Colorado Rockies in the ninth, retiring Corey Dickerson with a vicious slider for his 15th strikeout. It was not a perfect game because of a throwing error by shortstop Hanley Ramirez in the seventh. But it was one of a kind: the first time in major league history that a pitcher struck out at least 15 without allowing a hit or a walk.

It was the second no-hitter of the major league season and the second by a Dodger: Josh Beckett stymied the Philadelphia Phillies on the road last month. Kershaw and Beckett are the first teammates to throw complete-game no-hitters in the same season since Burt Hooton and Milt Pappas of the 1972 Chicago Cubs.