Thursday Morning Hot Links

The Astros beat the Rockies, 4-2. Houston is 55-32, winners of five straight games, with an eight-game lead on Oakland. The Astros have allowed two or fewer runs in three of their last five games. In games decided by a margin of 1-2 runs, the Astros are 24-14. Seven years ago today Jeff Luhnow traded Carlos Lee to Miami for Matt Dominguez and Rob Rasmussen. Five years after that the Astros won the World Series.

*Today is July 4. The Astros are off. They start a home series tomorrow with Anaheim, who is wrapping up a series with West Terrell tonight. There are 12 MLB games scheduled, which means that six teams do not play on the 4th of July, and three of those teams are missing out on a…