Houston Astros’ Offensive Cold Streak Has Hit Breaking Point in Recent Games

The Houston Astros have struggled offensively to open 2025, and against the St. Louis Cardinals it has begun to hit a breaking point.

Apr 15, 2025; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Houston Astros designated hitter Jose Altuve (27) hits a double against the St. Louis Cardinals during the third inning at Busch Stadium. | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

The Houston Astros have been off to an extremely slow start on offense in 2025, and it has limited the team to mediocre performances as they currently sit with an 8-10 record, good for fourth place in the American League West.

This offensive catastrophe has been discussed ad nauseam for multiple weeks, and as it continues to go on, it progressively seems to be getting worse.

While it started off as more of just a slump and seemingly something the team would work out of, in the recent series against the St. Louis Cardinals, things have become dire.

In Wednesday's matchup against the Cardinals, the Astros put up one run on four hits in 31 at-bats, in addition to this, they went 0-5 when there were RISP, as was noted by Brian McTaggart of MLB.com.

Looking at the lineup from this game, six of the Astros' nine batters failed to get a hit. Of those six players, only one player got on base via a walk (Isaac Paredes). Outside the two batters atop the lineup in Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña, the only other hit of the game came from Yainer Diaz.

When comparing their offensive statistics to other teams, Houston ranks No. 24 in batting average, No. 27 in slugging percentage, No. 24 in RBI, No. 23 in home runs, and No. 21 in total hits. The one thing they have been doing well on that side of the ball is drawing walks, as they sit tied for No. 7 with 68 on the year, which is impressive plate discipline is solid even as the actual contact being made is poor.

When looking through the early-season stats for each batter, two key players stand out when it comes to producing offensively, and those are Christian Walker and Diaz. These two batters have both played 75% or more of Houston's games this year, and both of them are below the Mendoza Line (hitting under .200) by a decent bit.

Walker may be the most concerning of the two. He's played in every game and is coming off an injury. It is tough to see him struggling early on. With 23 strikeouts to only eight walks, he is not preventing himself from swinging at bad pitches. With only two RBI, he is beginning to hurt the run scoring as well.

While odds are things will turn around in the coming weeks and they will get back closer to .250 as a team in batting average, it has been a struggle so far for the Astros as they continue to work through growing pains.