Gonzalez cruises, Kendrick homers twice in Nats' 3-1 win

Gio Gonzalez kept dominating, Howie Kendrick kept homering and the Nationals bullpen kept finishing things off tonight during a 3-1 victory over the Angels.

Gonzalez tossed six scoreless innings, failing to give up a hit until there were two outs in his final frame, and continued his standout season with yet another gem. The left-hander now sports an 11-5 record and 2.49 ERA, has gone at least five innings in all 24 of his starts, has 20 quality starts, has allowed more than four runs only once and owns a major-league-best 1.79 ERA at home.

And for the second time in 16 days, he flirted with a no-hitter.

Gonzalez wasn't quite as dominant tonight as he was July 31 in Miami, when he made it to the bottom of the ninth before surrendering a hit, but he was plenty effective. The left-hander faced the minimum over his first three innings, wiping out a walk of Mike Trout with a double play off Albert Pujols' bat.

By the time he took the mound for the top of the sixth, Gonzalez had the crowd of 32,355 buzzing with anticipation. The anticipation grew as he retired the first two batters of the inning, but then Daniel Murphy couldn't make a tough play on Cameron Maybin's chopper up the middle, ending Gonzalez's latest flirtation with history.

The crowd still stood and roared, and even after the Angels loaded the bases roared again when Murphy made a lunging grab of Jefry Marte's liner to end the inning and preserve what at that point was a 2-0 lead.

That lead was provided entirely by Kendrick, who 48 hours after winning Sunday's game with a dramatic, walk-off grand slam was up to his old tricks again. The veteran left fielder homered to left in the bottom of the third, then homered to right in the bottom of the fifth to cap a strong night against the club that drafted him 15 years ago. As he rounded the bases to approval from the fans, Kendrick owned a .395 batting average, four homers and 11 RBIs in 14 games since the Nationals acquired him from the Phillies.

The Nats extended the lead to 3-0 in the bottom of the sixth thanks to Anthony Rendon's single, a wild pitch and an error charged to Pujols on Matt Wieters' hard grounder to first.

Dusty Baker then turned things over to his bullpen, who succeeded even with setup man Ryan Madson apparently sidelined for the second straight game due to a blister on his finger.

Matt Albers pitched a 1-2-3 seventh to get the ball rolling. Brandon Kintzler, bumped to Madson's usual spot in the eighth, did surrender his first run in eight appearances on a solo homer by Cliff Pennington but struck out both Maybin and Trout to end the inning.

Sean Doolittle then pitched the ninth to lock up his eighth save in as many opportunities since his acquisition one month ago.