Keuchel’s return to form what Astros need most

CHICAGO — You only get to play the Carlos Correa card once.

The Astros did that when they came to U.S. Cellular Field last June, and it has brought returns for them every day since, the biggest being heightened expectations.

But baseball has always been about the quality of the team, not just its best players, so on Tuesday, the Astros made the kind of changes an ambitious team makes when things aren’t going well. They rearranged the furniture.

In a series of moves that included Carlos Gomez landing on the 15-day disabled list, they added prospects Colin Moran and Tony Kemp while also regaining Evan Gattis, who’s back from his refresher course in catching. It’s a stretch to refer to these as sweeping changes, but they do impact third base, left field, center field and catcher, and that’s a lot for any one day.

But for the Astros to bring back the feeling they had when they pushed the Royals to the brink of elimination in the American League Division Series, to improve the value of their property as well as its curb appeal, they’ll have to rediscover the rinse-lather-repeat monotony with which they produced one quality start after another last season.

“Pitchers feed off one another all the time,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “Last season, we had a ton of stretches where you could run a guy out there every five nights and feel really good about it. They felt good about themselves.”

With lefty Dallas Keuchel rolling to an AL Cy Young Award, the Astros were second in the AL with a 3.71 rotation ERA last season, ahead of everyone except the Rays. They opened this three-game series against the White Sox 13th in the AL with a 5.09 rotation ERA, behind everyone except the Twins and Athletics.

That’s a huge difference. It goes the longest way toward explaining how a team that won 86 …

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