Earlier this week, we took a deep look at the White Sox and their impressive start to the season and talked about whether it’s too good to be true. While it’s probably a tad too early to start making plans for the Windy City World Series, their early lead in the standings gives them a pretty comfy cushion regardless of regression by their outperforming players. The White Sox might be the feel good story of baseball so far, but it’s not all peaches and cream when it comes to preseason projections, so we need to talk about Houston.

The Astros came into the season as favorites in the AL West and Fangraphs had their probability to make the postseason at a cool 68%. Now, thanks to a brutal 7-15 stretch to start the season, those odds have dropped to 34%. The Astros currently have the same record as the Twins and Padres, whose playoff chances are respectively at 5.2% and 0.1%, but there’s reason for optimism, even if Houston is currently playing at a 75-win pace.

The Astros’ starting rotation is 30th in the MLB in K/9 (6.45) and 29th in WHIP (1.58). The velocity they’re getting from their front five doesn’t exactly strike fear into opposing hitters, but they weren’t a bunch of hard throwers last year either (except for Vincent Velasquez and Lance McCullers, more on them later), so what’s going on?

Dallas Keuchel has never been remotely close to a flamethrower, but that’s not how he snagged his Cy Young last year. His velocity is down and he’s having trouble locating his pitches as well, resulting in him walking about 75% more batters per 9 than he did last season. As terrible as that sounds, his 4.41 ERA might be misleading, as his 3.04 FIP gives room for some optimism and his .330 BABIP is significantly higher than his career line of .297. We’ll have to wait and see if this is just some early-season settling in, but he had a couple of non-Cy Young months last year, so it’s a bit early to proclaim his season over.

As with Keuchel, Collin McHugh’s velocity is also down to start the year. The difference in McHugh’s ERA (6.65) and FIP (3.43) is the 3rd largest in all of baseball for pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched. That’s cold comfort for Astros fans watching his starts, but his .420 BABIP suggests that a big chunk of this can be attributed to some bad luck. If the uptick in McHugh’s velocity in his last start sticks around and some balls find gloves at anywhere near a normal rate, McHugh should be just fine.

Scott Feldman, Mike Fiers and Doug Fister have all been worse than expected and, while it’s hard to be excited about that trio going forward, it’s also hard to imagine that they will all continue to be as bad as they have been without the Astros getting proactive. Fister is walking about four times as many hitters as he did in 2014 and twice as many as he did last season, his velocity is down and there aren’t really any statistical indications that he’s going to turn a corner. His ERA (5.56) is actually almost a full run below his FIP (6.46) and his BABIP is sitting at .254, so he may well be luck to have that ERA. As for Fiers (5.73 ERA, 5.51 FIP) and Feldman (4.58 ERA, 5.44 FIP), they’ve also been worse than expected, even for bottom of the rotation pitchers. Fiers has given up 6 home runs in 22 innings, but his 28.6% home run to flyball ratio is (hopefully) unlikely to continue.

The problem with the rotation isn’t limited to one individual’s struggle, it’s that everyone has been struggling at once. The Astros are fixing to bump Feldman and give Chris Devenski, who’s been lights out in relief, a shot as the starter for Saturday’s game, so we’ll have to see how that experiment pans out. Lance McCullers is still rehabbing from some shoulder soreness and likely out until some point in May, so there’s more hope there and some indicators that things can’t possibly stay as bad as they have been.

In terms of the Astros’ bullpen, they’re somewhere in the middle of the pack by most statistics. The rotation has been hogging the spotlight in terms of negative attention, with the notable exception of Ken Giles. Much is being made Giles’ start to the season, no doubt because of the very high price the Astros paid to acquire him, more so because Vincent Velasquez who was part of the package is turning heads with his 1.78 ERA, something the Astros could use in their rotation right now.

As always, small sample size caveats apply doubly for relievers at the beginning of the season. Giles is still striking out a ton of hitters (13 K/9), he’s just having trouble keeping the ball in the park. 6 of his 8 runs allowed have come on 3 home runs in 9 innings pitched, which is exactly one more home run than he allowed in all of 2015 over 70 innings. It’s pretty unlikely that his a 37.5% home run to fly ball ratio is going to go anywhere but down and he’ll probably be fine. Still, the Astros would probably have been cool with swapping him for Velasquez for a few weeks this season, even it’s a tad too early to declare the deal a total disaster.

On the offensive side, things look a lot better, with a couple exceptions. Jose Altuve (.330/.422/.659, 6 HR, 9 SB, 1.6 WAR) is absolutely on fire and is now a power hitter. Colby Rasmus (.275/.414/.623, 7 HR, 1.3 WAR) has been showing more plate discipline than ever before and doing his damnedest to keep up with Altuve. As always, it’s early, but Rasmus is well on his way to being worth the qualifying offer money he’s making. Carlos Correa, Tyler White and George Springer have all been contributing admirably and I, for one, wouldn’t bet against Correa picking up the pace when Altuve or Rasmus cools off. There are a couple of more serious holes in the lineup, though, in the form of Jason Castro and Carlos Gomez.

Castro is hitting .128/.268/.234, rough numbers, even for a defense-first catcher. His 39.3 K% is right up there with the worst in baseball and the power that made him an All Star in 2013 just isn’t there. It looks like something is going on with how he is seeing the ball, and his contact and swing percentage stats back that up. Assuming his defense is as consistently above average as it’s been, Castro doesn’t need to put up big offensive numbers to be an asset, he just needs to get back to the Mendoza Line, and that’s something he’ll quite likely do over a full season of PAs, no matter how bad it looks right now.

Gomez is hitting .197/.228/.250, which, while better than Castro, is more concerning, given the package that the Astros gave up for him (and Fiers) and the fact that the Mets bailed on a trade for Castro due to health concerns. The prospects Houston gave up are a sunk cost at this point, so the Astros just have to pray that Gomez can get healthy and figure out whatever is wrong. While he may not put up another 7+ WAR season like his 2013, the ceiling is still there.

Overall, the offense as a whole is almost certainly going to be fine. If you look at the clutch statistic, the Astros as a team are currently in possession of the worst record in baseball and are basically off the charts. The hits have been coming with the bases empty and aren’t there with runners on. These things tend to normalize over a full season and, if the Astros can get some more luck offensively and not have all of their starters underperforming at once, they’re going to be winning way more games than they are right now. Unfortunately, they’ve got a sizable hole to deal with now and, just like the White Sox don’t have to give any of their wins back, the Astros have some serious ground to make up.