The Houston Astros aren't bad, but they certainly don't look like the Houston Astros. As the defining team of the last half decade, the Astros have made the ALCS the last six years and to the World Series three times, winning it all in 2017 and last year in 2022. Over this stretch, the Astros have never won fewer than 95 games in a full season and only seen their win percentage dip below 58.6 percent during the truncated, pandemic-addled 2020 season. But whereas their 2020 struggles felt like a weird fluke (it was a pandemic, after all), the shocking part of the Astros 19-18 start this year is how normal it feels. The Astros have been mediocre because they've been mediocre. Luckily, reinforcements are on the way. Here are the three reasons the Astros will still win the AL West and rebound from their forgettable start.

1. They've been unlucky

The simplest reason to believe that the Astros will improve their record is that they're already better than their record indicates. Although the Astros have just a 19-18 record, they have their +21 run differential suggests that they should have 21 wins, but have underperformed in close games (3-3 in one-run games, 0-2 in extra innings). While the Astros would still trail the Rangers in expected wins (the Texas Rangers themselves have also underperformed relative to their run differential), they would at least vault the Angels into second place in the AL West. For what it's worth, oddsmakers in Vegas are bullish on the Astros' chances of turning their season around. Despite already trailing the Rangers by four games, the Astros are still the favorite to win the AL West; on Fanduel, the Astros are -120, while the Rangers are +380, the Angels are +420 and the Mariners are +500.

Similarly, Vegas views the difference between the Astros and the scorching hot Rays to be more or less a negligible one. The Rays may be 10 games ahead of the Astros in the standings, but they're only the slight favorite to win the AL. The Rays are +330 to make the World Series (and +650 to win); meanswhile, the Astros hot on their heels, with +350 odds to make the World Series and +700 odds to win it. Taken together, the combo of expected wins and rosy rest-of-season projections indicate that it's only a matter of time before the Astros snap out of their early season torpor.

2. They will get healthy

The Astros are banged up. Jose Altuve hasn't suited up this year as he recovers from a broken thumb he suffered at the World Baseball Classic in March. Chas McCormick, the team's starting center fielder, just returned after missing a month with lower back tightness. Michael Brantley, a five-time All Star with a career .300 average in Houston, hasn't played yet, still working his way back from last summer's shoulder surgery. Lance McCullers, the team's all-purpose pitching stud, is rehabbing a muscle strain in his throwing arm while Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia have both gotten injured this season. In total, the Astros have played most of their first 37 games—or at least a large chunk of them—without a third of their projected starting lineup and 60 percent of their starting rotation.

With the exception of Garcia (who needs Tommy John surgery), all of these guys will return, if they haven't already. Altuve has ramped up his workload and has started taking batting practice; McCullers has resumed throwing, tossing a 25 pitch bullpen session this week and touching 91.6 miles per hour on the radar gun. Urquidy is still on the 15 day disabled list, but even he should return by the All Star break and provide the Astros' pitching staff with some much-needed juice down the stretch. Injuries are part of baseball and there's no guarantee that the Astros ever get or stay healthy this year, but it's hard to imagine they'll ever be as short-handed as they currently are.

3. The Rangers will fade

By just about any statistical measure, the Rangers are the second best team in the AL—their 23-14 record only trails the Rays and Orioles and their +86 run differential is the second best in all of baseball, nearly 30 runs ahead of the third place Braves. This is, by all appearances, a juggernaut. But are they really? While the Rangers have a massive lineup that mashes homers and scores runs by the fistful, they're also, ultimately, the Rangers. Whereas the Astros have a sustained, continued track record of success over the last several years, the Rangers have the opposite of that. Over the course of a 162 game season, these kind of things matter. It's already common knowledge that the Astros have the resiliency and resolve to weather injuries and cold spells; the Rangers can't say the same.