DENVER – Carlos Correa hit one of Houston’s four home runs, Brett Olberholtzer pitched effectively into the seventh inning and the Astros continued their power surge Wednesday night in an 8-4 win over the Colorado Rockies.
Chris Carter, Preston Tucker and Jake Marisnick also homered for the first-place Astros, who have won four straight and lead the majors with 95 home runs.
Correa and George Springer had three hits each, but All-Star second baseman Jose Altuve left in the third inning with more discomfort in his right hamstring.
Olberholtzer (2-1) followed up his eight shutout innings against Seattle on Friday with another strong outing. He allowed three runs and eight hits, struck out five and didn’t walk a batter in 6 1/3 innings.
He worked around Charlie Blackmon’s leadoff double in the sixth but left after allowing Nick Hundley’s RBI single in the seventh.
Carlos Gonzalez homered and Nolan Arenado and Troy Tulowitzki had two hits apiece for the Rockies, who have lost seven of eight. Kyle Kendrick fell to 0-4 in six Coors Field starts.
Kendrick (2-9) fell behind during a 34-pitch first inning in which the Astros took control. Springer singled to lead off and Correa, the top pick in the 2012 draft, followed with his third home run since making his major league debut June 8.
Springer made it 3-0 with an RBI single in the second. Colorado got two back in the fourth on a sacrifice fly from Gonzalez and a single by Arenado.
Houston padded its lead after that. Tucker hit a solo home run in the fifth, Marisnick greeted reliever Christian Friedrich with a homer to lead off the sixth and Correa made it 6-2 with a ground-rule double that scored Juan Castro.
Carter hit a two-run homer, his 12th, off John Axford in the ninth.
Rockies manager Walt Weiss was ejected by second base umpire Jerry Layne for excessive arguing in the bottom of the third. Weiss was upset after the Astros were allowed to challenge a safe call on Blackmon’s attempted steal of second base. The call was overturned upon review, but Weiss argued the Astros’ challenge was late.
