Rolling Angels crush Astros, 11-3

The Angels were in a playful mood before yet another win Friday, 11-3 against the Houston Astros, and why not?

Gordon Beckham salsa danced as he took fielding practice. Children hoping for autographs threw bits of paper at a chuckling Mike Trout, who tried, and failed, to catch them all.

In a pregame ceremony at Angel Stadium, Matt Shoemaker, the bearded, streaking right-hander, received the awards for American League rookie and pitcher of the month. His teammates gave him a standing ovation — wearing oversized fake beards.

The Angels have now won nine in a row for the first time in a decade. The runs have come easy. In 30 games, the Angels have improved 15 games in the standings. They now lead the Oakland Athletics — sinking fast and now battling with three teams for two wild-card spots — by 11 games and need just five more wins to clinch the division.

The only real concern was the news before the game that left fielder Josh Hamilton still isn’t nearing a return. He missed his ninth straight game with a right shoulder injury.

Hamilton underwent another X-ray, which came back negative, but Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said he’s not yet day-to-day at this point.

“He’s not that close to playing,” Scioscia said. “So those decisions aren’t really that relevant.”

Earlier in the week, Scioscia expressed confidence that Hamilton would return before the season ended. Now he’s not as sure.

“We’ll see,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of clarity now just because of the setback we had three or four days ago. So we’ll have to just see how this thing works itself out.”

Scioscia was one of the few Angels not openly lifted by the team’s run of success.

“I don’t even know what our lead is,” he said. “We got a game tonight. I’ll look at the standings like in about a week if we’ve got to line up the pitching, but I think standings become a distraction. Magic numbers become a distraction. There’s a time and a place for them. It’s not right now.”

Think too much about standings, he said, and you can lose focus on the game at hand. And their opponent, the Astros, might have been the only team in baseball hotter than the Angels.

The Angels’ win streak would be at 15 if not for a two-game series with Houston that the Astros swept.

Once again, the Astros jumped out to an early lead, but the Angels were just waiting for the bats to come alive. That came during the fifth inning, which lasted half an hour, when the Angels scored seven runs. Astros right fielder Jake Marisnick dropped a fly ball to allow the tying run to score. Then Kole Calhoun, Mike Trout and Albert Pujols added RBIs, and David Freese blasted a two-run home run.

Calhoun, Trout, Freese and Howie Kendrick each had two RBIs.

During their nine-game winning streak, the Angels have averaged nine runs a game. They have scored the most runs in baseball.

C.J. Wilson, who had been hammered by the Astros in his previous three starts, turned in a workmanlike five innings. He labored but gave up only three runs, two earned, to improve to 12-9.

He wasn’t quite at his sharpest, but with the Angels’ bats still hot, it hardly mattered. The second half of the game was a formality, and with a few more wins now, the rest of September will be too.

zachary.helfand@latimes.com