Houston Astros Lineup Given Atrocious Ranking Among MLB Teams to Start Season

Houston Astros' slow starts have become as synonymous with April as Tax Day. No one looks forward to it, but you know it's coming and just have to deal with it.

This has become their MO over the last few years, getting off to painfully slow starts where people wonder if this is when they are going to bottom out. Each time, they eventually get on track and are back in the playoff picture.

It didn’t take as long this time around, but the team didn’t win back-to-back games until April 18 and 19. Despite that, they still ended the first month of the season with a winning record, victorious in eight out of 12 games to enter May with a record of 16-14.

The Astros are certainly thankful for the performance of their pitching staff, carrying the team to success out of the gate. They have picked up the slack for a lineup that is really hurting after losing All-Stars in third baseman Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker.

Replacing players of that caliber was always going to be difficult, but not many people expected this much of a drop-off in production.

Averaging only 3.9 runs per game, Houston is in the bottom half of the league in virutally every offensive category. They have a team slash line of .236/.310/.357, which rank 20th, 18th and 25th, respectively. Their OPS+ of 92 is also below the league average and 22nd in the MLB.

Those struggles have led Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report to place the Astros at No. 22 in his starting nine rankings, and the ranking is justified by their on-field performance.

“Through the start of play on Monday (April 28), there were 151 players with at least 30 plate appearances and an OPS of .735. Of the 30 teams, 29 had multiple players on that list. But Houston has zero names on it, the mostly disappointing offense surprisingly being led by Paredes (.734 OPS, 4 HR), through 27 games,” wrote Miller.

The team has begun to show some improvements at the plate since that post was made, with Jeremy Pena and Isaac Paredes both being above the .735 OPS benchmark along with backup catcher Victor Caratini.

But, this is an offense that needs its established stars to step up.

Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez aren’t producing close to the level they are accustomed to, which is leading to some poor offensive performances. Their big free agent splash, first baseman Christian Walker, isn’t living up to expectations either.

This pitching staff looks good enough to carry the load for the time being, but they would assuredly love a little more run support when they are on the mound.