St. LOUIS — The Dakota Hudson who emerged Saturday from a brief reboot in the minors, where he could hear the tick-tock of a clock to accelerate his pace, is exactly the Dakota Hudson who the Cardinals could find a role for in October.
In town for a one-game engagement, Hudson authored a career-high eight innings and drove the Cardinals to a peppy, crisp 5-1 victory Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium in Game 1 of a doubleheader against Cincinnati.
He will be back like he worked — quickly.
When the Cardinals demoted Hudson to Class AAA Memphis, they had him targeted for the start in one half of the doubleheader. He returned to the roster Saturday morning as the 29th man, and on Saturday evening he will return to a minor league roster to fulfill the remaining mandatory days on that assignment. He’s expected to travel with the team west, at least on the taxi squad, and he’s thrust his way into being considered for a start when the turn comes up, either against the Dodgers next week or later in the month.
In two starts for the Triple-A Redbirds, Hudson had to work under the pressure of the minor league pitch clock. Any delay or prolonged stretch between pitches and the batter would be awarded a ball. Hudson told manager Oliver Marmol that he felt the governor of that clock, that he adjusted where and how he received the ball back from the catcher to accelerate his work. The result was Hudson picking up the pace — as the Cardinals had urged him to do all season. There was early evidence of that in his start Saturday.
In his previous starts this season, Hudson averaged 16.4 seconds between pitches with no runner on base. Through the first few innings Saturday he had lopped off 4 seconds, at least, on his average between pitches.
The result was a quicker tempo and gobs of plays for his defense to make. Hudson got nine outs on the ground, he struck out five, and he limited the walks to two. Hudson (8-7) utilized all three of his prominent pitches with equal mix and effectiveness, turning not just to his sinker but sliding in a breaking ball and accessing the four-seam fastball that gives his repertoire a third dimension to test hitters. The efficiency was obvious as he completed six scoreless innings on 80 pitches. The one run he allowed was an earned run.
The game time reflected his influence on it: 2 hours, 45 minutes.
Hudson pitched most of his game with lead as a bases loaded walk to Paul Goldschmidt and Tommy Edman’s RBI single produced a 2-0 gap in the second inning. Yadier Molina widened it with a two-run homer in the third inning.
The Cardinals’ magic number to clinch the division dropped to 10.
The second game of the doubleheader will start ta 6:15 p.m. St. Louis time.
