Pujols homers twice off Hudson, Braves lose 7-3

The Braves felt good about their situation before Sunday. They were back in a first-place tie after consecutive wins against St. Louis, and had their ace on the mound for the series finale against the Cardinals.

One problem: Tim Hudson has had a splendid season for the Braves, but in a few games lately he has not pitched like an ace. And he didn't on this night.

Albert Pujols hit two home runs and Hudson gave up six runs in five innings of a 7-3 loss to the Cardinals at Turner Field, dropping the Braves back to second place in the National League East, a game behind Philadelphia.

"It's not frustrating," said Martin Prado, who lined out to left field with two on to end the game.  "We're playing against a pretty good team. There's nothing frustrating about it. We're just going to start over tomorrow, another winning streak."

Alex Gonzalez had three hits, Jason Heyward had two doubles and Nate McLouth continued his resurgence with a double, home run and another would-be homer  erased by Colby Rasmus' leaping catch above the center-field wall.

But none of it mattered much after the Cardinals scored four runs in the fifth inning against Hudson to turn a one-run lead into a 6-1 margin.

"I didn't locate some pitches and they made me pay for it, especially in that fifth inning," said Hudson (15-8), who gave up nine hits, six runs and two walks while losing his third consecutive start.

The right-hander hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and ran up 102 pitches in five innings.

Among four hits in the Cardinals' four-run fifth: Pujols' leadoff homer, a two-out, run-scoring single by pitcher Kyle Lohse -- "the back-breaker," Hudson said -- and a two-run triple by No. 9 hitter Brendan Ryan (St. Louis manager Tony La Russa often bats the pitcher eighth).

"Yeah, the pitcher got him for base hit and the ninth-place guy," Braves manager  Bobby Cox said. "Huddy's ball was running over the plate tonight. It moves so much, sometimes it gets back in the middle, and that's what happened to him."

After splitting the four-game series with St. Louis, the Braves are one game behind NL East leader Philadephia, which beat the Mets in New York on Sunday. The Braves need to make inroads against Washington in a three-game series that starts Monday at Turner Field.

That's followed by a nine-game trip to New York, Philadelphia and Washington, and the road has not been kind to this Atlanta team.  Like Prado, Braves first baseman Derrek Lee said the Braves weren't frustrated by the current situation in the standings.

We know it's going to be close," he said. "That's just how it's going to be. So we're not frustrated at all. We'll come back out ready to go tomorrow, win a series and go have a good road trip."

The one thing the Braves could count on until the past couple of weeks was Hudson. If they were losing, Hudson would stop a skid. If they were winning, he'd continue a winning streak. But on Sunday, he couldn't prolong the Braves' two-game winning streak.

After a dominant stretch of pitching pushed Hudson into the forefront in Cy Young Award discussions, the right-hander has struggled some lately at an inopportune time. Hudson has allowed 23 hits and 13 runs in 18-1/3 innings during his three-game losing jag. He's 1-3 with a 5.17 ERA in his past five starts, after going 5-0 with an 0.82 ERA in the previous six.

"I feel fine," Hudson said. "Tonight was really the only game in the last few that I felt like  I really wasn't in a rhythm from start to finish. Some other games it seemed like it was one inning that would kind of get me. But I feel fine. Just got to make better pitches."

The Cardinals led 2-1 before Pujols led off the fifth with his 39th homer. It was his 38th career multi-homer game, moving him past Stan Musial into sole possession of the Cardinals franchise record.

"With Albert, the first homer [two-out solo homer in first inning] was just a sinker that was down, but it caught too much of the plate," Hudson said. "The second homer was a sinker that I tried to get down and in. It was not in as much as I wanted it and it was up more than I wanted."

Pujols has hit .353 with 13 homers and 33 RBI in 33 career games at Turner Field, where his 1.208 OPS before Sunday was his second-highest at any ballpark where he'd played more than 30 games. That OPS climbed some Sunday.

The Cardinals slugger has hit .385 with seven homers and 27 RBIs in his past 26 games against the Braves, regardless of venue.

"We got balls that ran right over the plate for him," Cox said. "The first one was right down the middle, started away and boom [over the middle]."

Hudson had still been 5-1 with a 1.26 ERA in his past seven home starts before Sunday, when he allowed just one fewer run in five innings than he'd given up in 50 innings over his previous seven home games.

Hudson allowed only four homers in 105-1/3 innings this season at Turner Field before Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Braves couldn't break through against Cardinals right-hander Kyle Lohse, a pitcher who's struggled mightily. He came in with two wins and a 7.13 ERA in 13 starts, and was 1-4 with an 11.22 ERA in his past five starts.

The Braves got nine hits against him in 5-1/3 innings, including four doubles, but went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position against Lohse.

"We couldn't hit the ball any harder tonight,"  Cox said. "Geez, to [only] get three runs – it seemed like we scored six or seven, but we didn't."

After Heyward hit a two-out double in the third and scored on Prado's single, Brian McCann singled to put runners on the corners. It was not surprising, considering Lohse came in with an almost unfathomable .406 opponents' average with two outs.