ST. LOUIS -- Dakota Hudson had two things going for him as he took the mound Sunday for a start against the Reds at home.

The Cardinals right-hander had been dominant against Cincinnati, entering the game with a 6-0 record in nine career appearances against the Reds. Hudson has almost been as dominant at home, entering with a 15-3 record and a 2.23 ERA at Busch Stadium III.

Unfortunately for Hudson, neither of those trends continued, as he gave up six runs on nine hits and two walks in seven innings, and the Reds avoided the series sweep with a 7-6 win.

“Just not enough strikes,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “It's super simple. When he's in the zone, he's really good. When he's not, too many free passes and opportunities for the other team to do what they did today.”

Just 56 of Hudson’s 95 pitches were strikes.

“It's hard to compete when you do that. … He just needs to attack the strike zone,” Marmol said.

Hudson struggled with his control in the fourth inning, allowing three runs on two hits, two walks and a hit-by-pitch.

After Brandon Drury led off with a single, Hudson walked Tommy Pham and Joey Votto to load the bases with no outs. Hudson hit Kyle Farmer to give the Reds their first run, a second run scored on the fourth double play turned by the Cardinals' infield, and Hudson allowed a single by TJ Friedl to quickly erase a 3-0 lead that Nolan Arenado had helped St. Louis get the previous inning with a two-run homer.

“There were some balls, I tried to go in and messed up, and I had a few misses and just trying to do a little too much once I had runners on that inning,” Hudson said. “A little bit more reactive than proactive.”

Hudson pitched in and out of trouble with help from his defense that turned a double play in each of the first four innings. The four double plays are the second most by one pitcher in Cardinals history behind Steve Mura’s five Aug. 10, 1982, and the last Cards hurler to have four is Mike Leake in 2017.

“I felt like you know, with the double-play balls, it was all but the one with the bases loaded, it was they had to hit, they had to swing their way on, getting weak contact,” Hudson said. “It was just the fact that I didn't challenge them and force their way through that it seemed like things started to squeak through their way. So, I mean, this game’s hard, but I mean, give them an inch, they take a mile kind of deal. Just gotta be cleaner.”

Hudson looked like he had regained his form with a seven-pitch sixth inning, his only clean frame of the outing.

But the Reds broke a 4-4 tie in the seventh on a Friedl triple that nicked the glove of a diving Brendan Donovan in right field, and Pham hit a 400-foot solo homer off Johan Oviedo in the eighth, which proved to be the game-winner.

If there was a silver lining for Hudson, it is that he went seven innings for the third straight start. The double plays helped keep his pitch count down, allowing him to last longer.

“I’d rather there be a guy on because he earned it rather than just a free pass, but he's going to get a ton of double plays,” Marmol said. “He's going to get ground balls. He's got to make the other team earn it.”

The Cardinals plated four runs against Reds starter Graham Ashcraft, who needed a career-high 99 pitches to get through 4 2/3 innings.

Albert Pujols provided a brief jolt for the Cardinals with an RBI double to tie it at 4-4 in the fifth. It was the 1,375th career extra-base hit for Pujols, leaving him two shy of Stan Musial for third most in MLB history.

Cincinnati’s maligned bullpen combined for four innings of scoreless relief before Juan Yepez hit a two-run homer off Alexis Díaz with two outs in the ninth to cut the Reds’ lead to one.

But Díaz earned his second save by striking out Pujols to end the game.

After sputtering this week and getting swept in St. Petersburg, the Cardinals' offense has scored 11 runs in the past two days.

“I think momentum's day to day,” Donovan said. “We've hit a lot of balls hard since Tampa too, it's just timely hitting. I like where we're at. I like the swings that we're taking, I like the at-bats we're taking and we just keep doing what we’re doing.”