Lance Berkman

Three games does not a baseball season make.

Yet, there comes a moment where honesty must overtake optimism, and the honest fact that this will be a very long season for the Astros must be accepted.

A listless three-game sweep at the hands of the visiting San Francisco Giants—lowlighted by Wednesday's 10-4 loss—provided at least five notable signs that indicate the 2010 Astros may be headed toward the franchise's worst season in 20 years.

As the team takes Thursday off in preparation for a weekend series against the two-time defending National League champion Philadelphia Philli

Someday soon a man wearing a suit should appear in the Houston Astros clubhouse. After confirming the players are indeed the 0-2 Astros, the man should then give them a stack of documents and say three ominous words:

"Consider yourselves served!"

The documents would then state that Roy Edward Oswalt and Wandy E. Rodriguez are suing Astros hitters for an unspecified amount of money for one simple reason:

Lack of run support.

With slugging first baseman Lance Berkman sidelined until at least Opening Day, the Houston Astros are in serious danger of a second straight anemic season at the plate.

In 2009, the Astros finished 14th in the National League in runs scored, 12th in home runs, and 15th in walks.

Much of the problem stemmed from Berkman's inability to stay healthy. In 136 games (his fewest since 2005), Berkman had only 562 plate appearances (his fewest since 2000).

As if the advent of the 2010 MLB season wasn’t stressful enough, the Houston Astros were dealt with a major blow today.

Lance Berkman is scheduled to have surgery on his left knee Saturday, and while his projected recovery time is said to be only two weeks, a month or longer is more likely, leaving the Houston Astros season in dyer straights.

What I’m Reading

• The Braves’ 20-year old monster prospect Jason Heyward is already turning heads in camp . The feeling around Kissimmee is that he’ll continue this trend all the way into the regular season. The major league regular season.

Would Lance Berkman seriously retire after the 2010 season?

Ok, so I've spent a few blog postings whining about how Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane knows as much about baseball as ESPN columnist Rick Reilly (who famously has whined about how boring baseball is despite getting euphoric about that wonderful cure for insomnia, golf). I've also worried about Houston's off-season moves and how creamed cauliflower will have a better 2010 than the 'Stros will.

Today, we take an acrostic look at what Richard Zowie (that's me) thinks will happen to the Astros in 2010:

Now that the pitching prospects breakdown is out of the way, it’s time to take a closer look at the infield position players for the 2010 Houston Astros.

It should come as no surprise that the Houston Astros are in the hunt for pitchers this offseason.

Recently, I took Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle up on his offer to "fix the Astros", and what came out of my research and conclusion was that the Astros could feasibly win in 2010 .