The gloom and despair of the Astros' 4-11 start seemed compounded by injuries and a very tough schedule. In addition to missing Justin Verlander, Jose Urquidy, Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers, Jr., a pretty good starting rotation for most teams, Chas McCormick suffered a mild hamstring injury and Alex Bregman missed a couple games with an illness.

Not an ideal way to start a home stand against a division rival and defending world champion. That's before the Braves, one of the best teams in the National League, comes to town.

But, the Astros managed to find their swagger at the plate and on the mound both Saturday and Sunday behind outstanding pitching efforts from Ronel Blanco (again!) and Cristian Javier, taking two of three against the Rangers and starting the season 4-3 against Texas keeping them just 2.5 games back in the standings despite the early struggles.

With everything that has happened, it's difficult to recognize that there is some surprisingly good news when it comes to this team. It's not ALL good, but more of it than you might think.

The offense is already better than you think.

The Astros, after Sunday's win, are fourth in home runs, sixth in walks, third in strikeouts, third in batting average, fifth in on-base percentage, fourth in slugging and fourth in OPS. Anyone who thinks this won't be a very, very good offense is ignoring the fact they already are. Their struggles have mostly been hitting with runners in scoring position, where they were last going into Saturday. In just two games, they climbed to middle of the pack. A lot can happen with stats so early in the season.

The fact is that, with a couple notable exceptions (see below), this is a fearsome lineup that is going to become even more formidable as the year goes on.

Without Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and Ronel Blanco have been great.

Blanco has been an absolute revelation. He has the third best ERA in baseball and seems to have found a groove with his newly minted changeup that is absolutely devastating hitters. Javier came into the year with a boatload of expectations that he has met head one. He is eleventh in ERA and, like Blanco, his changeup has been the difference this year.

On a team that boasts quite a few very good pitchers, having your third guy and someone no one even expected to be the rotation turn out such incredible performances early in the season has been nothing short of a godsend.

The bullpen has improved.

There was much consternation over the struggles of the bullpen early in the season, but seemingly everyone has hit their stride from newbie Tyler Scott to Seth Martinez (his rough, meaningless inning on Sunday notwithstanding) to Bryan Abreu to even Josh Hader, who looked human in the first few games. Even Rafael Montero looks capable out of the 'pen.

In truth, a lot of the struggle early this year have some reasoning behind them even if the losses continued to mount. This bullpen still has some issues, but it is much better than it began and continues to improve.

There are still holes in the lineup (and the rotation).

It remains almost unfathomable that the Astros went into the season with first base exclusively covered by Jose Abreu and Jon Singleton. Abreu is hitting .111 with 14 strikeouts and often looks lost at the plate despite a couple of hits over the weekend. Singleton, the designated power lefty bat off the bench, is faring slightly better hitting .250 with a pair of doubles, but very little actual power slugging just .321. Because Singleton is out of minor league options and Abreu is in year two of a fairly large three-year deal, the Astros are painted into a corner with both.

In the rotation, Hunter Brown looks lost on the mound. Many were hoping he would make a leap in his second full year as a starter, but he seems to have regressed. Until they are fully healthy, they are going to have to run him out there every fifth day and hope he can figure it out on the fly.