ST. LOUIS (AP) Nolan Arenado and Jordan Walker homered in the first inning and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Oakland Athletics 6-2 on Tuesday night.

Arenado finished with four hits and Tommy Edman also homered for the last-place Cardinals, who have won five of six.

Lawrence Butler hit his first major league homer for Oakland, which has lost five straight overall and its last nine on the road. The A's (33-87) fell 54 games under .500 for the first time since ending the 1979 season at 54-108.

Dakota Hudson (4-0) recorded his third successive win, allowing two runs on five hits over 6 2/3 innings.

“I'm not overthinking, just playing catch out there,” Hudson said.

Hudson has won three starts in a row for the first time since Aug. 31-Sept. 12, 2020.

“I don’t want to attribute it all to mentality, but a decent amount of it is,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “He’s attacking the zone.”

Arenado hit a two-run shot in the first off Spenser Watkins (0-1), his team-high 25th, to make it 3-0. Three batters later, Walker hit his 11th homer.

Arenado became the tenth third baseman in major league history to record 25 home runs in eight or more seasons.

“I take a lot of pride in it,” Arenado said. “I believe when I'm out on the field, I can put up numbers.”

Arenado improved his average to .289.

“He's a nice example for a guy like me to look up to,” St. Louis outfielder Lars Nootbaar said. “A (future) Hall of Famer and he's still getting after it day after day. Being able to watch a guy like that work is very important."

Arenado is the seventh St. Louis player to hit 25 or more homers in three successive seasons.

St. Louis has scored five or more runs in each of its last six games.

“Our approaches have been very good,” Marmol said.

Butler, in his 18th career at-bat, sent a long drive over the wall in right in the seventh inning.

“I feel like I can make the adjustments pretty fast,” Butler said. “Just keep working every day.”

Oakland outfielder Esteury Ruiz stole his 47th base of the season in the third inning to extend the franchise rookie record.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Athletics: RHP Angel Felipe was placed on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow strain. He allowed three runs on three hits to St. Louis while recording one out in Monday night's 7-5 loss.

Cardinals: INF Nolan Gorman missed his second successive game with lower back tightness. C Willson Contreras sat out with hip tightness suffered while running the bases in the third inning Monday night.

UP NEXT

St. Louis LHP Matthew Liberatore (2-4, 5.72 ERA) will face Oakland RHP Paul Blackburn (2-3, 4.52) as the Cardinals seek a three-game sweep on Wednesday.

---

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb