WASHINGTON — The first League Championship Series game held in Washington, D.C. was a party for most of the 43,675 fans who attended on Monday night. The second one could be a long-awaited coronation.

The Washington Nationals, heirs to almost a century of baseball anguish in the nation’s capital, beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-1, to take a three-games-to-none advantage in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.

Stephen Strasburg continued the Nationals’ pitching dominance over the Cardinals with seven superb innings, striking out 12 and allowing only one unearned run, in the seventh. Offensively, the burden fell to Howie Kendrick, a new Mr. October who hit three doubles, knocked in three runs and scored twice for the Nationals, who have never trailed in the series. Kendrick has nine runs batted in this postseason and is batting .314.

“He’s the greatest ever,” said third baseman Anthony Rendon, who made a glittering defensive play and added two hits, including an R.B.I. double. “You see the man. He’s what, 36 years old? And he’s still doing it.”