WASHINGTON -- You'll have to forgive the Astros if they're not that worried. After all, they've been down this road before, starting slow only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and work their way into the playoff race.Houston is buried at the bottom of the standings in the six-team NL Central just over a month into the season, a surprisingly familiar position for a franchise that has had two sub-.500 seasons in the last 14 and has made the playoffs six times over that span.
Perhaps most distressing: Its biggest star, Lance Berkman, has been a big part of the problem.
"As he goes and [Carlos] Lee goes, we go" manager (and amateur poet) Cecil Cooper said.
So far, with Berkman hitting .184 entering Monday night's game against the Nationals, the Astros have been going nowhere fast.
But there is hardly a hint of desperation from the 33-year-old slugger or his manager, the latter of whom has already had to hear whispers that his job could be in jeopardy because of the slow start to the season.
"About this time last year, [Lance] got cranked ... and really went wild," Cooper said. "We just kinda took off with him."
Cooper's memory is sharp. The Astros lost four out of five to close April last season – dropping to 13-16 – then Berkman went on a 35-for-62 tear over the next 16 games, homering eight times and driving in 19 runs. With Berkman carrying it, Houston went 12-4 over that stretch and surged into wild-card contention, a place it would stay until the final weeks of the season.
So is he about to break out again? At 11-15, the Astros could sure use a big outburst from their best hitter.
"I see it coming," Cooper said. "You're talking about one of the best hitters in the game. ... I think the swing is starting to come back a little bit, so hopefully that'll get him on a good roll."
For Berkman's part, he hasn't felt any different than when he's swinging a hot bat.
"I've definitely felt worse at the plate than I have this first month," he said, insisting he hasn't made any mechanical adjustments to his swing. In fact, the first baseman chalks most of his first-month struggles up to the mysteries of baseball.
"I've been driving the ball just fine," he said.
"When you're going good, you get a good pitch to hit and you're hitting it hard somewhere. And a lot of times when you're struggling, you're getting the same good pitch, but instead you're fouling it off.
"So for me, it's just a matter of getting into that zone where I'm consistently putting the ball into play hard."
Berkman had better find that zone soon.
The Astros are 15th in the National League in runs scored, and while they have gotten less than desirable production from other regulars (Kazuo Matsui and Miguel Tejada, to name two), it is Berkman's scuffling that stands out. His .762 OPS this year is 207 points lower than his career mark.
They can't afford to waste the surprisingly good pitching they've been getting from guys not named Roy Oswalt much longer, and they certainly can't bank on another Houdini act in the second half, just because they've done it so much in recent years.
"No one wants to get off to a bad start, but we seem like we have perfected the art of getting off to a bad start and playing well," Berkman said. "Probably one of the worst starts we've had since I've been here, we went to the World Series [in 2005], so anything can happen."
Sure enough: Houston has been under the .500 mark on July 1 in six of the last eight seasons, but only finished there twice.
That's not a game the Astros want to keep playing, though -- not with the Cardinals looking formidable and the Cubs coming off a 97-win season last year. Ostensibly, the more you lose in April, the more ground you have to make up as the season goes on.
"You look at the talent we've assembled, there's no way we're not gonna at least be competitive," Berkman said.
As long as he heats up in the near future, that's still in the realm of possibility.
Cooper, for one, is counting on it.
"We got a little hole to dig out from, but it's still early enough."
