CHICAGO — Slow starts are Alex Bregman’s standard operating procedure. He began his major-league career in a 2-for-38 malaise and hasn’t fared much better to start any of the eight subsequent seasons.
During seven of them, Houston could hide its franchise third baseman’s brutal starts. Teammates around him continued to hit, a pitching staff shoved and the club stayed afloat while awaiting Bregman’s re-emergence. When it arrived, the Astros felt whole.
Never in this season’s first 26 games have the Astros appeared that way, magnifying misery the club can normally mask. Bregman isn’t the sole cause of the club’s catastrophic start, but his habitual season-opening slump has never felt more glaring — for the ballclub and Bregman himself.
A 3-1 loss on Thursday sent Houston to 7-19, the type of start that could thrust it into irrelevance by Memorial Day and perhaps force a trade deadline firesale. Bregman is playing in his final season before an expected trip to free agency this winter.
Both scenarios sharpen the scrutiny surrounding Bregman, who never shies away from his struggles but will shut down one common narrative.
“I find zero pressure in regards to playing in a contract year. I play the game to be an elite player in the game. I could give a s— about anything but playing at a high level. The only thing I want to do is play baseball at a high level as long as I can play the game at a high level,” Bregman said before Thursday’s game.
“I find zero pressure in anything besides the pressure I put on myself to perform at a high level every single day regardless of the year — contract year, whatever, I don’t give a s—. I want to play baseball at a high level and play the game well as long as I can play the game and win.”
Houston and its third baseman aren’t meeting those standards. In a career full of slow starts, none has been worse than this one. Bregman’s .216 batting average and .566 OPS are his lowest after the first 23 games of any full major-league season he’s played, pitiful timing in a platform year.
Only 16 qualified hitters have a lower slugging percentage than Bregman’s .273 clip. All but five of his 19 hits have been singles, including the two he struck on Thursday. It was just Bregman’s fourth multi-hit game in 23 chances. His second single, a blooper that fell between defenders in swirling wind, did give Bregman 1,000 hits for his career.
Alex Bregman hits a single in the sixth inning for his 1,000th career hit. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Bregman’s plate discipline will always stay intact — he’s worked 10 walks and struck out 12 times across his first 99 plate appearances — but a .293 on-base percentage and poor quality of contact are contributing to one of Houston’s most pronounced struggles.
Its lineup leads the American League in hits and batting average, but is scoring just 3.92 runs per game. Bregman has hit within the top four of Houston’s batting order during all 23 games he started.
Bregman spent 21 games in the cleanup spot before manager Joe Espada moved him up to second on Tuesday in an effort “to get Breggy in a spot where he’s been successful in the past, trying to get him going.”
Bregman boasts a .902 OPS from the cleanup spot — higher than any spot in which he’s taken at least 800 plate appearances — but Espada had no choice but to make the move. Bregman had just three RBIs hitting cleanup and Houston is in such dire straits that there is no time to wait for a turnaround.
“Pitchers pitch you how they’re going to pitch you and attack you how they’re going to attack you no matter where you are in the lineup,” Bregman said on Thursday. “Maybe in certain situations the attack will be a little bit different, but at the end of the day, it comes down to executing good swings and good mechanics.
“Right now, to this point, I haven’t done that but I’m extremely confident it’s coming and it’s coming soon and I’m going to be able to carry it throughout the rest of the season and have a great season.”
A .225 expected batting average and .313 expected slugging percentage suggest there’s no bad luck to blame. Bregman is averaging just an 87.5 mph exit velocity and has a 34.7 percent hard-hit rate. His career average is 37.4 percent.
Rollover ground balls to the left side have become far too common, but Bregman is prone to those when he struggles. Sixteen percent of his contact has been popups. Major-league average popup rate is 7 percent.
“(It comes from) being under plane and either coming up over the ball and rolling it over or being under plane and cutting off the ball and popping it up,” Bregman said. “It’s caused way earlier in the sequence than when I start my move to hit. It’s caused from how I’m loading and when I correct how I’m loading, I will be able to correct it all.”
Whether it will already be too late is a legitimate question. Only one team since 1901 has lost 19 of its first 26 games and still made the playoffs — the 1914 World Series champion Boston Braves. Only three teams in that same timeframe have finished with a winning record.
For Houston to be the fourth, Bregman must author the same bounceback he’s orchestrated for seven straight seasons. He began the 2022 and 2023 seasons with a sub-.800 OPS across his first 23 games. He had a .700 OPS during the first 23 games of the 2018 season, too.
Bregman exited all three years with an OPS+ at least 23 points above league average. To secure the type of contract he desires, and to extend a championship window he helped to open, a similar resurrection will be required.
(Top photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
