HOUSTON — Dallas Keuchel lost in his first appearance against Houston, and Abraham Toro had a career-high four hits to lead the Astros over the Chicago White Sox 8-2 Sunday for their seventh straight win.
Keuchel, a two-time All-Star for the Astros who helped the franchise win its first World Series title in 2017, won the 2015 AL Cy Young Award with Houston. He went 76-63 in seven seasons with the Astros and left after the 2018 season for Atlanta before signing a $55.5 million, three-year contract with Chicago after the 2019 season.
Keuchel (6-2) tied a season high by allowing six runs — three earned — in a season-low 2 2/3 innings as the AL Central leaders lost their season-high fourth straight.
“Not a lot of good, a lot of bad,” Keuchel said of the four-game series. “It’s just one of those four-game series where you face a good team that’s hot, and you’re not really doing anything good on your end, so it was a good old-fashioned butt-whooping.”
He gave up seven hits and four walks, leaving after throwing 41 pitches in the third.
“It was weird,” Keuchel said of returning to Houston. “I had every emotion under the sun going there. I wasn’t making terrible pitches, but at the same time, I wasn’t giving myself any room to breathe. … I just couldn’t really stop the bleeding there in the third, and I wasn’t around the zone as much as I would have liked to from the previous couple outings.”
He was given a video tribute Thursday during the series opener, and the crowd 39,821 gave him a standing ovation when he came out Sunday.
The 33-year-old left-hander had been 5-0 in eight starts since an April 30 defeat to Cleveland.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.