ST. LOUIS — Dakota Hudson lapsed into a bad habit that had plagued him. Juan Yepez returned to a good one that had got him to the majors.
Working with more alacrity in his previous two starts, Cardinals right-hander Hudson had allowed just two runs and six hits over 14 innings. “It sure beats pitching slow and bad,” Hudson had said.
In one sense, Hudson was efficient Sunday in that he traversed seven innings with just 95 pitches. But only 56 of those were strikes and not many of them came in the fourth inning when Hudson walked two, hit one and coughed up an early 3-0 lead against the Reds. Cincinnati, after catching the Cardinals, then scored four of the next five runs before hanging on to win 7-6 at Busch Stadium as early-season sensation Yepez continued his rebound with three hits, including a two-run homer in the ninth.
Hudson was headed for a Cardinals record by throwing four double play balls in the first four innings. That was one short of the nine-inning club record for ground-ball double plays induced, most recently accomplished by Steve Mura in 1982. Left-hander Danny Jackson was the last Cardinal to throw four double plays in the first four innings in 1995.
But Hudson didn’t make it to five and wound up allowing six runs after he had entered the game with a 2.23 earned run average at Busch III, second only to John Lackey (2.08) and Hudson's 15-3 won-lost mark had been the best there.
Manager Oliver Marmol said simply, ‘Not enough strikes.
“It’s super simple. When he’s in the zone, he’s really good. When he’s not. . . too many opportunities for the other team to do what they did today. Fifty-six (strikes) is not good. You look up there (at the scoreboard) and he’s got 23 balls and 23 strikes. Just dead even.
“Two walks and a hit by a pitch, all in a row. It’s hard to compete when you do that. He just needs to attack the strike zone.”
Hudson (4-3) allowed he had been “trying to do a little too much once I had runners on (in the fourth. A little more reactive than proactive.
“If I’m challenging hitters I don’t think it’s a problem,” he said. “And they capitalized on pretty much everything. I’ve got to scatter those runners.”
Hudson was nicked by a sacrifice, two sacrifice flies and a wild pitch.
“This game is hard,” he said. “Give them an inch, take a mile kind of deal. Just got to have a cleaner game.”
Marmol said the double play total masked Hudson’s true efficiency Sunday.
“That’s what he does,” said Marmol. Hudson is tied with Baltimore’s Bruce Zimmerman for the major league lead at 12 ground-ball double plays forced.
“I’d rather there be a guy on because he earned it than just a free pass,” said Marmol. “He’s going to get a ton of double plays. He’s going to get ground balls. He’s got to make the other team earn it.”
Shortstop Tommy Edman and second baseman Nolan Gorman each started two double plays. Each singled in the first inning when the Cardinals scored their first run on two wild pitches.
Nolan Arenado’s 11th homer, off promising rookie Graham Ashcraft, gave the Cardinals a 3-0 lead in the third. After the Cardinals fell behind in the fifth, Albert Pujols’ double tied the score at 4-4 in the home fifth and brought Pujols to two behind Stan Musial, who holds the Cardinals’ record for extra-base hits at 1,377.
After Matt Reynolds singled and moved up on Hudson’s wild pitch in the seventh, T.J. Friedl tripled over the head of a backpedaling Brendan Donovan in right field. Reynolds scored and then so did Friedl on a sacrifice fly by Albert Almora Jr.
“(Donovan) is working extremely hard at it,” Marmol said. “That’s going to happen. If it was a lack of effort or preparation, different story. This kid’s giving it everything he has. Everyday outfielder (Dylan) Carlson probably gets to that ball.”
But Carlson, just returning from a hamstring injury, had a day off from the field on Sunday as the Cardinals couldn’t pull off the series sweep.
Donovan said, “I thought I had a good read on it. It was a straight shot over my head. I jumped and it hit the tip of my glove. Anything over your head is tough to judge out there.”
The Cardinals were three for 13 with runners in scoring position, with catcher Andrew Knizner failing to get three runners home from scoring position. Knizner is nothing for his past 17 and one for 29. Longtime Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, nursing a knee injury, is seven for his last 41.
“We’ve got to see batter at-bats out of ‘Kiz,’” said Marmol. “He’s working at it, but at some point there has to be a change as far as what it looks like on the field.”
Marmol said that Molina, who will be 40 next month, might play more if deemed healthy enough to do so.
Former Cardinal Tommy Pham cracked his eighth homer against Johan Oviedo in the eighth. That proved to be the decisive run because Yepez answered that with his fifth homer, a two-run poke just inside the left-field foul pole, with two out in the ninth.
Yepez had been pulling off the ball in his swing and had been three for his previous 19 before he had a late-game walk and single on Saturday and a career-high-tying three hits, including a line single to right field, on Sunday.
He said he had been working with hitting coaches Jeff Albert and Turner Ward, run production coach “Packy” Elkins, unofficial hitting coach Pujols and Yepez’s father, Omar, who never played baseball at all but sends advice after watching videos in his native Venezuela.
“For a week here, Albert (Pujols) has been telling me (about pulling off),” said Yepez. “I”ve been working really hard to stop doing that. It’s paying off. I feel way better now.
“My dad spent hours watching my videos from last year in Triple-A and some videos from this year. He saw something with my front foot. My dad is my hero and my inspiration. He knows me.”
Donovan, who played with Yepez at several levels last year, said, “He knows what he’s doing. When he’s going, he’s one of the better hitters I’ve seen. And when he’s not going, he’s one of the better hitters I’ve seen.
“So, he’ll be all right.”
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