Rock and roll.

I like live music, and I like my wife, and so when she asked me a couple months ago if we could go see Lenny Kravitz in mid-September to celebrate her birthday . . . sure, absolutely.

Because there’s a small chance she’s reading this, I will say that my answer would have been the same no matter how the Rangers season was going on July 2 (hey, I agreed to get married on a date that from time to time comes back around on Opening Day) — but the fact is that Texas was six games out in the division and sixth in the chase for the league’s two Wild Card spots on that date, so even if it had occurred to me to factor in the possibility that Houston in Arlington on September 16 might mean something (and I’m not saying it did, Ging . . . really I’m not . . . no, really), and even though I’ve never been a big Lenny fan, the calendar looked completely clear on that Wednesday night a couple months down the road, and I was all in.

We bought the tickets. The Rangers then lost 10 of 13. And were nine games out. And ninth in the Wild Card chase.

Fast forward to last night.

I did manage to keep tastefully close tabs on Texas 14, Houston 3 as it unfolded on the dimmed screen of my phone, and I might have even delivered a tweet or two as Lenny delivered another song that sounded oddly like the one before it (though I’m not saying I did that, Ging . . . don’t bother clicking that jumplink, please).

Three games into a four-game series, and into seven head-to-heads as the scheduled 162 draw to a close, and Texas hasn’t lost.

Yesterday afternoon, Richard Justice (MLB.com) noted that Houston was 20-9 in games started by Cy Young favorite Dallas Keuchel, and 57-59 in all other games.

Now, resoundingly, it’s 20-10.

Speaking of 2010 . . . .

No, no. Not now. As Jeff Banister told reporters late last night: “This is not an exhale moment.”

There’s another game to win tonight.

Sixteen more games after that.

But there’s something special going on right now, and if you’d told me on July 2 that there’d be 6,800 walk-up tickets sold for Texas-Houston on September 16, and that I’d be asked that mid-September week to do four out-of-market radio and Web hits (including this ESPN Podcast on Tuesday with Jonah Keri and Houston Chronicle writer Evan Drellich, which was a blast) after fewer than that the previous year and a half combined, then I might have examined the idea of a Wednesday night Lenny Kravitz show in Allen a little more critically.

(I’m not saying I would’ve, Ging . . . just might’ve . . . I mean . . . never mind.)

It’s highly unlikely, as Lenny delivered “Don’t come hanging ‘round my door / I don’t wanna see your shadow no more,” that I was thinking about Texas and Houston and who now owns the shadow, and I seriously doubt that I thought back to the Rangers’ first half during “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over,” and there’s very little chance, Ging, that I imagined A.J. Hinch and Jeff Banister, in uniform, karaoking a bit:

Hinch: “I want to get away. I want to flyyyyyyy away.”

Banny: “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”

Texas beat the Astros, 2-1, in a Keuchel start in Houston on May 4. Keuchel didn’t take the loss — he hasn’t taken a loss at home all year.

That game was nothing like last night’s. Ross Detwiler started it for Texas. Adam Rosales (hitting .148) started in place of Rougned Odor (hitting .146). Delino DeShields was a bench player — for one more day, as Leonys Martin would injure his wrist that night. The Rangers won with a tying run in the eighth and the decisive run in the ninth.

Last night’s, on the other hand, was an absolute butt-whipping from the get-go.

It gave Texas a 70-51 record between those two Keuchel-Texas matchups, good for second best in the American League.

Houston is 59-62 over that same stretch, 10th in the league.

Last night also padded a first-place perch in the division for the 2015 Texas Rangers, something that even the glass-half-full set could never have envisioned back when we bought tickets to see Lenny Kravitz.

+0.5 or +2.5.

Are you kidding me?

Like the man says, I guess: You just got to believe.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(Love you, Ging.)