HOUSTON — Deep in the heart of Texas, the Houston Astros are showing the baseball world what a metamorphosis looks like.
They certainly showed the Rockies at Minute Maid Park, utilizing a potent start from ace left-hander Dallas Keuchel and a potent bat by athletic right fielder George Springer to notch a 6-3 victory Monday night.
Houston lost 111 games in 2013 and 92 last year. But with their victory Monday, the young, talented Astros improved to 37-28 and remain in control of the American League West.
“That is a dynamic offensive club,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said of the Astros. “They hit the ball out of the park better than anybody in the game and we saw that tonight. It’s a dangerous lineup.”
With three homers Monday — two by Springer — the Astros increased their season total to 88. They are 24-0 this year when they hit multiple home runs in a game.
The Rockies lost for the fifth time in six games, falling seven games under .500 (28-35). The American League road has not been kind to the Rockies, who have lost 12 consecutive games in AL ballparks, the third- longest road losing streak in the history of interleague play.
The Rockies had hoped to get a bounce-back start from Chad Bettis, but that didn’t happen.
“In the first two innings,” Bettis said, “I didn’t have a very good feel for my off-speed pitches and they were ambushing me early.”
Keuchel (8-2), his heavy sinker on point early, induced 13 groundball outs over 6 ⅔ innings. His bids for a perfect game, no-hitter and shutout all ended in the sixth. Rafael Ynoa had a leadoff walk and Nick Hundley followed with a line-drive single to left. Springer made a flying Superman grab to rob DJ LeMahieu of extra bases before Troy Tulowitzki looped an RBI single to right-center, scoring Ynoa.
Then RBI machine Nolan Arenado ripped a single to left, scoring Hundley to cut Houston’s lead to 5-2. Arenado leads the Rockies with 50 RBIs, with 99 games remaining in the season.
In the seventh, Hundley ripped a double down the left-field line to score Brandon Barnes, cutting the Astros’ lead to 5-3 and chasing Keuchel.
“The first four or five innings, he was really working the edges well; was down extremely well,” said Hundley, who’s now hitting .294. “You see the type of contact we were getting early. It speaks to his movement and his location.”
Added Barnes, a former Astro: “You want to get (Keuchel) out of his comfort zone. As soon as we got runners on, he wasn’t as comfortable. He was still efficient, but we were able to get to him when we got runners on.”
Bettis, so good for three consecutive starts in late May and early June (2-1, 1.91 ERA), got the Charlie Brown treatment from the Astros. They knocked his socks off in a four-run first inning on consecutive singles by Springer, Carlos Correa and Preston Tucker and a three-run homer to right-center by Colby Rasmus.
Springer’s loud solo homer to left in the second inning put the Astros in front 5-0.
“What mattered tonight is that I didn’t do my job the first two innings,” Bettis said. “If I make two different pitches there — just better located — to Springer and Rasmus, it’s a completely different ballgame.”
Bettis was done after five innings, his ERA jumping from 3.05 to 3.74 after giving up five runs and seven hits. He needed 101 pitches (59 strikes) to get through a tough night in his home state. Bettis was born in Lubbock, Texas, and played college baseball at Texas Tech.
Springer also smacked a long home run off reliever LaTroy Hawkins to lead off the seventh, providing the Astros with an insurance run.
Patrick Saunders: psaunders@denverpost.com or
