The first 21 games of the season of the Stros’ (9-12) season has been one of streaks — they started out the season by losing 5 of their first 6 games, rebounded momentarily by winning 8 of their next 9, only to blow that comeback by losing their next 6. As a result, the excuses of the club’s spotty performance are already in full bloom:

“Berkman and Lee haven’t started hitting yet.”
“If Jennings comes back strong, the starting pitching will be fine.”
“Burke is a good athlete who will find his way in centerfield.”
“Biggio is such an inspiration.”

Well, maybe all those statements are true. But the harsh reality is that this is not a good baseball team right now.
As noted in the 2007 season preview, none of this is particularlry surprising. Despite catching lightning in a bottle in the post-season during 2004 and 2005, the Stros have been trending downward for most of this decade into the current mediocre edition of the club. During most of that time, reasonably strong pitching tended to mask the decline in the club’s overall hitting.
However, through the first eighth of this season, both the hitting and the pitching on this Stros club have serious questions. The Stros’ hitters have already generated 13 fewer runs than an average National League club would have scored using the same number of outs at this stage of the season (RCAA, explained here), which ranks 10th out of the 16 National League teams (the NL Central-leading Brewers are at +18 RCAA). The pitching staff has been about as bad, saving 7 fewer runs already than an average National League staff would have saved so far this season (RSAA, explained here), which ranks 13th among National League clubs.
The season statistics through to date are below, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here:

Here is the Stros active roster, which includes links to each player’s individual statistics.
Almost every position player is underachieving from a hitting standpoint, led by future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio (-2 RCAA/.302 OBA/.457 SLG/.759 OPS), who is now a shadow of the player he once was. It took Bidg 62 plate appearances this season before he drew his first walk and he still has a total of only 4 walks in 87 plate appearances. He has struck out 18 times already (20% of the time) and has hit 3 home runs, which means that he has scored only 7 runs the rest of the time. Part of that is attributable to the hitters behind Bidg not driving him in, but that poor run production is mainly the result of Bidg’s rather pathetic .302 on-base average.
Sadly, however, there are not many better alternatives to Bidg on the current roster. Chris Burke has been below-average both at bat (-3/.321/.338/.649) and in centerfield. Mark Loretta (2/.410/.417/.827) would probably be an upgrade over Bidg at second, but neither Luke Scott (-1/.333/.407/.740) nor Jason Lane (-2/.231/.553/.784) has been effective enough to justify full-time play in the outfield, so the prospect of moving Burke to second to spell Bidg remains on hold waiting for Hunter Pence (.405/.579/.984 at AAA Round Rock) to arrive. With both Berkman (0/.385/.329/.714) and Lee (-2/.298/.482/.780) not yet hitting their respective strides, and with Ausmus (-2/.333/.360/.693) and Everett (-2/.329/.344/.673) continuing to drag down the bottom of the batting order, the Stros offense is every bit as bad as it has been over the past several seasons.
Meanwhile, beyond the steady Roy Oswalt (2 RSAA/3.34 ERA), the starting pitching is tenuous. Jason Jennings is still at least a couple of weeks away from returning from a bout of tendonitis and Woody Williams (-6 RSAA/5.90 ERA) appears to be washed up. Chris Sampson (-1 RSAA/4.26 ERA) had a couple of promising outings before he pitched batting practice to the Phillies in his most recent outing and Wandy Rodriguez (-2 RSAA/4.50 ERA) is on the brink of disaster at all times. On the good side, the injury to Jennings has allowed rookie starter Matt Albers (0 RSAA/3.75 ERA) to gain some valuable experience and he has looked reasonably good, while the relief pitching has also been generally acceptable, although Brad Lidge (-3 RSAA/7.36 ERA) continues to struggle and Rick White — who has been particularly effective (3 RSAA/1.54 ERA) in the early going — just went on the disabled list with a pulled muscle in his rib cage area.
Finally, it doesn’t help things that Manager Phil Garner appears overmatched. Quick note to Manager Garner — batting Ausmus and Everett (not to mention pitcher Rodriguez yesterday) late in close games with runners in scoring position is not conducive to winning those games.
So, what to do? On one hand, it’s too early to panic. One way to look at the season to date is that the Stros are still within shouting distance of .500 even before Berkman and Lee begin hitting. So, if the pitching holds up — and the Stros pitching has been generally good to very good over the past several seasons — the Stros should improve when Berkman and Lee start generating more runs. Inasmuch as the other NL Central clubs all have their own problems (the division leading Brewers just lost Ben Sheets again), the Stros can probably remain in contention so long as they muddle around at .500.
On the other hand, there is not much else the Stros can do. Pence would appear to be a clear upgrade in center over Burke and Juan Gutierrez (2.35 ERA at Round Rock) is better than any currently-pitching starter with the exception of Roy O. However, those are the only two prospects that appear to be ready and better than any of the Stros’ alternatives at this point, which is a stark reflection of the poor development of position players in the Stros organization over the past 7 years or so. Outside of Pence, there are no position player prospects in the Stros high minor league levels who are a viable alternative to the position players currently on the Stros active roster. It’s not particularly comforting that the Stros executive who was in charge of making most of those player development decisions is now calling the shots as the Stros general manager.
Finally, although somewhat understandable from a public relations standpoint, the Stros’ indulgence of the club’s icon Biggio has had real and substantial costs. At key times in their respective baseball careers, both Burke and Lane have been blocked from regular playing time over the past several seasons by Biggio. Neither of those two will ever be the player that Bidg once was, but both of them provided key home runs for the club in the post-season and there is a reasonable probability that both of them would have been more productive than Bidg during the past several seasons had they had the opportunity to play regularly. Depriving a club’s best prospects from developing their talents at the MLB level while indulging a marginally productive veteran is a surefire way to stunt the development of an organization’s best talent.
After spending most of the past two weeks on the road, the Stros begin a six game homestand against the Brewers (13-8) this weekend and the Reds (10-12) starting Monday before going out on the road again for a week against the Cardinals (10-11) and the Reds. Look for the next Stros season update around May 20th or soon thereafter if a rainout or two occurs between now and then.