Spencer Arrighetti fanned a career-high 10 over seven shutout innings and the Houston Astros won their seventh straight game, beating the visiting Colorado Rockies 7-1 on Wednesday afternoon.
Arrighetti (4-6), who entered the game with an ERA of 6.36, enjoyed the longest outing of his major league career. He gave up just three hits and didn’t issue a walk in his 14th big league start.
Ryan Feltner (1-7) absorbed the loss after giving up seven hits and four runs in six-plus innings. Feltner walked one and fanned two.
Arrighetti didn’t allow a baserunner until Ezequiel Tovar hit a one-out single in the fourth. Nolan Jones doubled with two outs in the fifth and Tovar doubled with two outs in the sixth, but Arrighetti stranded both runners by recording inning-ending strikeouts.
Feltner was nearly as good for most of his outing, but Houston broke through in the fourth. Jose Altuve led off with a single before stealing second and third, then rode home when Yainer Diaz sliced a single to right-center.
Altuve made it 2-0 in the fifth with a two-out single to left-center that chased home Cesar Salazar, who had doubled down the right field line.
The Astros put the game away in the seventh with four runs, getting help from some shaky Colorado defense. Salazar lofted a sacrifice fly to center that scored Mauricio Dubon ahead of a fielder’s-choice grounder by Altuve that brought in Jeremy Pena, who beat the throw home from Tovar at short.
Alex Bregman’s fielder’s choice then produced a run via a throwing error from second baseman Brendan Rodgers, and Diaz capped the rally with his second RBI single of the day.
The Rockies avoided a shutout in the eighth thanks to a sacrifice fly by Brenton Doyle, but Houston got that run back in its half of the inning on Pena’s RBI single.
The result allowed the Astros (40-40) to reach the .500 mark for the first time this year.
–Field Level Media
