1985
Tudor's highlight was a spectacular 1985 season for the St. Louis Cardinals. Oddly enough, Tudor started that year with a 1-7 record and a 3.74 earned run average through May. He then went on a tear that has rarely been seen since by going 20-1 with a 1.37 ERA the rest of the season and lowering his overall ERA to 1.93. Tudor concluded the season by winning his last eleven decisions. Only the best season of Dwight Gooden's career stopped Tudor from winning the National League Cy Young Award and leading the league in ERA, wins and complete games. He was sixth in strikeouts for the year.
Moreover, Tudor's ten complete game shutouts in 1985 made him the only pitcher since Jim Palmer in 1975 to reach double-digits in that category. (Bob Gibson holds the Cardinal record with 13 in 1968). To make the achievement more impressive, his ten shutouts were all in the last four months of 1985. To date, Tudor is the last Major League player to record 10 or more shutouts in a season. The most since then had been 8 by Roger Clemens while playing also for Boston in his early career, in 1988, during his 5th season in the majors.
The Cardinals were in the heat of a division race against Gooden and the New York Mets in September 1985. Tudor improved even more by starting the month with two consecutive shutouts and then pitched against Gooden himself in a legendary matchup on September 11. Gooden and Tudor locked horns pitch-for-pitch and the score was 0-0 after nine innings. Jesse Orosco took over for Gooden in the tenth inning and gave up a home run. Tudor came back out in the bottom of the inning and finished the three-hit, ten-inning masterpiece for his third consecutive shutout of the month. After two sub-par performances, he pitched his fourth shutout of the month and then pitched another ten innings of shutout ball against the Mets' Ron Darling but the Mets turned the table and beat the Cardinals' bullpen in the eleventh inning.
Tudor's pitching propelled the Cardinals into the playoffs. He lost Game 1 of the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers but won Game 4 to even the series and St. Louis won 4 games to 2. Tudor was masterful in Game 1 of the 1985 World Series and even better with a shutout in Game 4 but completely fell apart in Game 7 leaving in the third inning as the Kansas City Royals rolled to an 11-0 victory for their only World Championship. Tudor was so upset by his performance in Game 7 that in a post-game tantrum he cut his pitching hand after punching an electrical fan.
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