Cards get heavy dose of Hudson after homer barrage  

ST. LOUIS -- Sweating more than he had at any point in his baseball career, Cardinals pitcher Dakota Hudson said under normal circumstances that he would have gone through at least four jerseys and undershirts while pitching in suffocating humidity on Wednesday night at Busch Stadium.

A no-hit bid, however, does not qualify as normal circumstances and Hudson wasn’t about to change a thing while he was holding the Twins hitless over the first 5 1/3 innings.

Further complicating things was the fact that a light rain fell during the middle innings, making his jersey even wetter and heavier -- not that he minded it one bit.

“I tried holding off on changing uniforms until I gave up a hit, so I was pretty drenched by the time their relievers came,” said Hudson, who went a season-best seven innings and struck out a season-high seven in the Cardinals’ 7-3 win.

“If Waino [Adam Wainwright] is not moving from his seat [in the dugout], I’m not changing uniforms. Not that I’m superstitious, but I’m a little-stitious.”

A Cardinals club that traded future free agents Jack Flaherty and Jordan Montgomery has made no secret that it will be aggressive in free agency and via the trade market in trying to add three starting pitchers for next season.

Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz are the only starters under contract for 2024, and other pitchers such as Matthew Liberatore, Hudson and Minor League hopefuls Gordon Graceffo and Michael McGreevy will likely get auditions down the stretch to prove they can be counted on in '24.

Not that Hudson wants to think that far ahead following a rocky couple of seasons he has spent splitting time with St. Louis and Triple-A Memphis.

“I know what [the situation] is right now, but if I look too far ahead, all that’s going to do is get me in trouble,” said Hudson, whose no-hit bid was broken up by a Michael A. Taylor single with one out in the sixth.

“Right now, I’m trying to go out and win games, and that’s the best thing I can do for the team. We as a staff can set a tone with our mindset. If we start looking too far ahead, no one’s going to be as high-quality as they are if they stay in the moment.”

The moment for the Cardinals was the second inning when outfielders Tyler O’Neill, Jordan Walker and Lars Nootbaar smashed home runs off Twins starter Joe Ryan, who surrendered his 25th long ball of the season an inning later when Alec Burleson also went deep.

The last time three Cardinals outfielders had hit home runs in the same game was Sept. 24, 2021 (O'Neill, Nootbaar and Harrison Bader), per Elias Sports. The last time three outfielders had home runs in the same inning for the Cards was Sept. 19, 2002 (Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Eli Marrero), per Elias.

“I didn’t realize that we all three had homers today until [Walker] said it, and that’s pretty cool,” said Nootbaar, whose 411-foot smash left the bat at 106.4 mph, per Statcast.

“It’s always a good day when your teammates side-by-side, you can laugh a little bit more in the outfield.”

The Cardinals turned the game into a laugher early with their power surge, and Hudson tangled Twins hitters in knots with his heavy sinker and a wipeout slider that he’s started using more to get more swing-and-miss from hitters.

Hudson got 17 swings on his sinker, and most of them were pounded into the ground with him recording nine ground-ball outs. Eight of his nine swings and misses came on his slider, and that was a big reason behind his season-best strikeout total.

“Man, that was a really good outing because he pounded the zone with everything,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “He got a lot of swing-and-miss with the slider because they weren’t seeing it well, and it played well off the sinker. Overall, that was a nice job.”

If Hudson is going to continue to make a push toward locking down one of the rotation spots for 2024, he will need to trust his stuff the way he did against the Twins.

Too often, Hudson has gotten himself in trouble by pitching on the edges and trying to be too perfect with pitches. His mindset now, he said, is to stay in attack mode.

“That’s always the building block of always trying to get better for me,” said Hudson, who improved to 19-5 in 52 games (35 starts) at Busch Stadium.

“It’s just about staying clean with my delivery, not trying to overdo stuff and letting the ball move.”