Houston feeling urgency after sputtering summer stretch

HOUSTON -- The Astros beefed up their offense at the Trade Deadline by adding Carlos Correa, Jesús Sánchez and Ramón Urías, in addition to welcoming back All-Star Jeremy Peña after he missed 27 games with a left rib fracture. A month later, the club is still searching for its offensive identity, especially at home in Daikin Park.

In losing back-to-back games to the Angels on Saturday and Sunday, the Astros scored one run, which came on a Sánchez infield single in the third inning Saturday. They were shut out for the fifth time in August (third at home) in losing 3-0 to Los Angeles on Sunday with right-hander José Soriano holding them to one hit in seven innings while striking out eight batters.

Coming off back-to-back losing months -- 12-13 in July and 13-15 in August -- the sputtering Astros will try for a winning September, which they may need to do to hold off the second-place Mariners, who are two games behind them in the American League West race. And the onus will be on Houston’s inconsistent offense that’s averaged 3.5 runs per game in August.

“I think that we’ve been through some stretches of, ‘Here we go, right?’” manager Joe Espada said. “We’re starting to click and then we run into a couple of decent arms and we haven’t been able to do much offensively. We’re going into September. It’s go time. Pretty much, that’s it. This is an offense that’s been good for a long time. We added a right-handed hitter in Correa, who’s been here before and he knows what we’re all about. We’ll get it going here. We’ll put this month behind us and this is when we play our best, in September.”

The Astros slashed .205/.285/.315 while going 6-6 at home in August, averaging 2.4 runs per game. They hit much better on the road during the month (.251/.314/.418) while averaging 4.4 runs per game, despite posting a losing record away from home (7-9). The six games of the current homestand have underscored their lack of clutch hitting (5-for-42 with runners in scoring position).

The team also returned slugger Yordan Alvarez from the injured list at the start of the homestand Tuesday for the first time since May, but his presence hasn’t provided a wholesale offensive surge. Alvarez is 4-for-14 with a homer and seven walks (.500 on-base percentage) in his return.

“I feel like all the games we’ve been at home, we haven’t been as good as we were when we were on the road,” said Correa, who has posted a .772 OPS in his return to Houston. “It’s baseball, man. It’s hard to tell when the whole lineup is just scuffling like that and the at-bats are not as good as we’re accustomed to see. There’s obviously some adjustments that need to be made. It’s very easy to say it, but we can do a lot better than we’re doing lately.”

Correa said when players are struggling with mechanics, then the approach suffers as well because you start chasing. Espada said he doesn’t sense any frustration in the lineup, but perhaps the Astros are trying to do too much with men on base.

“I think we’re just maybe not following the plan that would normally work for us, but I think we will be good tomorrow,” Jose Altuve said. “We’ve got great hitters. When we are in these situations, we always overcome this. We’re still in a good position so we’re going to go out there and win the game tomorrow.”

This is the fifth season in a row the Astros will enter September in first place in the American League West, and three of the four previous races were decided in the final days of the regular season. Houston has only three likely playoff teams remaining on its schedule with the Yankees in town Monday through Thursday, a trip to Toronto set for Sept. 9-11 and the Mariners coming to Houston for the Astros’ final three home games of the season, Sept. 19-21.

Will the bats be up to the challenge?

“We’ve got a great team,” Correa said. “We’ve got a lot of talent. We’re scuffling right now, but we’re able to make adjustments, and we’ve done it before. That’s something that we look forward to doing in the next games coming up.”