ST. LOUIS — If you are looking for a husband and father of the year from the sports world, Nationals reliever Daniel Hudson is your man. Hudson missed Game 1 of the NLCS Friday to be with his wife, Sara, for the birth of their third daughter, Millie.

The Nationals won without him, beating the Cardinals with Anibal Sanchez not allowing a hit until two outs in the eighth. After Sanchez gave up a single, lefty reliever Sean Doolittle got the final four outs for the save.

An exhausted Hudson returned from Arizona to the team Saturday and got the final two outs of the Nationals’ and Max Scherzer’s 3-1 win over the Cardinals at Busch Stadium as Washington took a 2-0 lead in the NLCS.

Asked how he will sleep on Saturday night, Hudson smiled and said, “Pretty well.’’

Earlier, he explained his timeline.

“We tried to schedule an induction for the 10th, which was [Thursday],’’ Hudson said. “Kind of made sense to go in between. If we were able to advance, obviously the 14th and my first two kids came a little bit later than their due date, so … If you push it back a couple days you’re looking at maybe Game 6, Game 7 of a championship series. I figure Game 1 is a little bit better miss than an elimination game.

“Things changed.’’

Life changes, and you have to react.

Some criticized Hudson for missing the game. Such is the social-media, know-it-all, Twitter world we live in today. Hudson was strongly supported by his teammates and when he arrived back, everyone congratulated him.

There is no doubt Hudson made the right choice. Trusting your teammates to pick you up. Hudson trusted his teammates to get the job done while he was with his family at this precious time.

“I’m not on social media anymore,’’ Hudson said. “I got rid of it a couple years ago. It’s just something, a decision I made to try to focus myself on more positive stuff in my life. Everybody’s got their opinions, man, and I really value my family and my family time.

“I didn’t know that this was a new thing to have a playoff paternity leave list. I had no idea. I was, like, ‘I can’t be the only person to have a baby in the middle of the postseason.’ And for it to blow up like it did, man, it’s kind of crazy. But I didn’t really give much thought about not going. My family is top priority for me.

“I heard somebody say one time baseball’s what I do, it’s not who I am. And kind of once you have kids or once I had kids it really resonated with me.’’

Life is the game you play to win. Daniel Hudson is a winner.