San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson delivers a pitch to the St. Louis Cardinals in the third inning at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on June 1 2014.  San Francisco won the game 8-0.    UPI/Bill Greenblatt

San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson delivers a pitch to the St. Louis Cardinals in the third inning at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on June 1 2014. San Francisco won the game 8-0. UPI/Bill Greenblatt

38 year old veteran Tim Hudson threw seven shutout innings and  San Francisco got going  with a four-run first inning off Lance Lynn.  That led the Giants to an 8-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.  The Giants have won five of six and have the best record in the NL at 37-20.  Meanwhile, the Cardinals have lost four of five and managed just four hits.

Hudson (6-2) gave up three hits, struck out six, and walked two in improving to 4-4 against St. Louis. Hudson’s last win against the Cardinals came on July 19, 2007, with the Atlanta Braves. His 1.75 ERA is second in the NL, and he has gone at least seven innings in nine of 11 starts.  Very similar numbers to Adam Wainwright.

After finishing off the Yankees in his first complete game shutout, Lynn struggled getting through the first inning that took him 35 pitches and 21 minutes.  When it was all said and done, the Giants had a 4-0 lead.

Lynn gave up three straight singles to start the game, two grounders and a broken bat hit to right to score the first run.  With one out, second baseman Kolten Wong bobbled the ball trying to start a double play putting runners on second and third with the error.  On the next out, Lynn hyper-extended his knee covering first, but then gave up a hard single up the middle scoring two more runs.

It continued to be an eventful first inning.  Matt Carpenter extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a single. Matt Holliday was walked with two outs to bring up Allen Craig who took a fastball off his helmet.   After being looked at by a trainer and showing no ill-effects, Craig headed to first to load the bases, but the Cardinals failed to score.