Astros: The bats have awoken and the Astros look great

Through the first eight games of the 2017 season, the Houston Astros have been uncharacteristically quiet on offense.

Astros fans can now breathe a little easier. In game number nine, the ‘Stros busted loose for seven runs on 14 hits.

Just as the Twitter-verse began to panic about the inexplicably quiet bats, the Astros finally unleashed on the Seattle Mariners. Every Astros hitter that came to the plate in Tuesday’s game reached base except for Carlos Correa. Including Evan Gattis and Jake Marisnick who both had just one plate appearance. Also, six men came through with a multi-hit game.

This is the offense that Houstonians envisioned this season. An offense that, even if your superstar(Correa) has an off night, the rest of the team picks him up. If you can put up 14 hits and push across seven runs  with an 0-5 in your 4-hole, your offense is pretty well-rounded.

Altuve finds his swing

Perhaps the most encouraging sight to see here is Jose Altuve‘s second multi-hit game of the season. Altuve came into this game hitting at a .188 clip on the year and had looked completely lost at the plate at times. After three straight seasons of 200+ hits for him, Astros fans had become a little spoiled by his greatness. Although he has now shown himself to be human, Altuve looks to be on the rise once again. He is clearly one of the best in the game today and will most likely finish yet another season with over 200 hits.

George Springer, Alex Bregman, Carlos Beltran, Yulieski Gurriel and Josh Reddick also came up big with multi-hit games. Springer and Beltran have both been swinging the bat well. But it was nice to see Bregman break through with a couple nice hits.

Bregman reminiscent of 2016

Bregman has been another guy that has struggled early. He made a huge splash in the league when he came up last year. He hit .264 with eight homers and 34 RBI in 2016. But he also started his career with an 0-18 stretch and hit .053 in his first 10 games in the bigs. He is off to another slow start here in 2017. But after seeing what he can do last year, there is no reason to panic about his start.

After this bust-out game for the good guys, Astros fans can take a deep breath and feel good about this season. It is still early but the Astros look very good so far. The pitching staff has been one of the best in the league and with the offense starting to come around, the team looks downright dangerous.

Next: The Astros offensive woes may not be as bad as we think

Rangers fall further behind

Another reason for Astros fans to smile is the fact that the Rangers blew another lead late last night. The cross-state rivals are now off to a 2-5 start and cannot seem to find an answer at the back of the bullpen. So be happy breathe easy and be happy Houston.

**Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com**