WASHINGTON — Thanks to some superb pitching, the countdown is on to the Washington Nationals’ first World Series appearance in franchise history.

Up 2-0 on the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series after near no-hitters from Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer, the Nationals turn to historically strong playoff pitcher Stephen Strasburg in Game 3 Monday with the change to take a stranglehold.

“They’re getting quick outs. They’re constantly ahead in counts,” Nationals closer Sean Doolittle said Sunday. “Those kinds of things are kind of things that, when you’re down there in the bullpen, you see that, and you feed off that energy. So when your number gets called, you basically want to do the same thing. You want to pick up where they left off and get the ball to the next guy.”

Washington has used just seven pitchers in its first seven postseason games, a startling figure in an era of quick triggers and rotating relievers: Scherzer, Strasburg, Sanchez, Doolittle, projected Game 4 starter Patrick Corbin and relievers Daniel Hudson and Tanner Rainey.

It has worked so far. But manager Dave Martinez can’t guarantee he’s able to keep the same rotation throughout the rest of this series and beyond.

“I’m hoping that this continues, but there might become a moment where somebody goes five or six innings and we have to do something else,” Martinez said. “When that happens, we’ll have the matchups ready for the in-game decisions.”

Strasburg takes a 1.32 career postseason ERA to the mound for the first Championship Series game in the nation’s capital. The big right-hander, making the organization’s much-criticized 2012 Strasburg Shutdown look better over time, is 2-0 in the playoffs this fall.

“For me, it’s trying to focus on what you can control, disregard what you cannot control,” Strasburg said. “And that really comes down to executing a game plan.”