Gonzalez on win No. 100, Harper and Werth on surging lineup

Rain in Colorado prevented it from happening in his first attempt. Then an erratic performance in Atlanta prevented it from happening in his next attempt.

Fortunately for Gio Gonzalez, the third time was the charm in his pursuit of 100 career wins, thanks to one of the left-hander's better starts in a while and some much-appreciated run support from his teammates during an 8-5 victory over the Rockies.

"I'm just happy it came," said Gonzalez, who has notched 62 of those wins while wearing a Nationals uniform over the last five seasons. "I finally showed up, and I'm happy I did it here with this organization. Oakland gave me an opportunity, and Washington helped me continue that opportunity, and I couldn't be happier to do it with these colors and represent the Washington Nationals."

Gonzalez would never admit it, but the wait might have been starting to bother him. His 99th win had come 16 days earlier.

"I'm sure it was," manager Dusty Baker said. "He didn't want to come out that last game. He didn't want to come out of this game. He was going to get it eventually, and we needed it."

Gonzalez's night was shaky at the outset - he twice gave up runs immediately after the Nationals scored in the previous half-inning - but he finished strong, facing the minimum in the fifth and sixth innings.

Those shutdown innings have been a bugaboo for the left-hander, and he has noted it before. So his ability to avoid that recurring theme by night's end served as something of a confidence-booster for him.

"I think it's just trying to get back to focus," Gonzalez said. "That's one thing (pitching coach Mike Maddux) was telling me about: Just make sure you execute your pitches and finish what you're doing."

It also helps when your teammates keep providing offense the way the Nationals did tonight. They scored single runs in the first, third, fourth and fifth innings, then exploded for four more in the seventh to help build a large enough cushion that Nick Hundley's three-run homer off reliever Shawn Kelley in the ninth did not matter.

Offensive contributions came from up and down the lineup. Jayson Werth homered, doubled and drove in two runs. Daniel Murphy homered and drove in two runs, giving him 98 for the season. Bryce Harper doubled and tripled home two runs with a blast off the top of the wall in center field. And Trea Turner continued to do things only he can do, beating out two infield singles and using his speed to force the Rockies into three errors that put him in position to score two runs.

"He's using his speed to his advantage," Harper said of Turner, who is now hitting .341 with a .903 OPS, 16 stolen bases and 33 runs scored in 39 games. "If he hits a ball in the hole, he's busting his ass to first base and really getting it done. That's somebody that's super special. We know what we've got in him. I was thinking tonight, imagine if he was up in May, June and July, or before that. We might have already ran away with this thing."

Even with Turner having spent only the latter half of the summer in the majors, the Nationals still lead the National League East by eight games. But his arrival, along with Harper's recent surge - he's hitting .400 with eight extra-base hits and 15 RBIs in his last 13 games - and the continued production of Murphy, Werth, Wilson Ramos and Anthony Rendon, the Nationals lineup is starting to resemble the kind of highly potent assemblage of hitters most believed all along it could be.

"I think we're starting to jell a little bit, so we need to keep jelling and just working it out," Werth said. "Once we get into about halfway through September, I hope we're hitting on cylinders and we can carry that through as long as we can."