ARLINGTON, Texas — Nine games into his 11th major-league season, in the 1,416th start of a storied career, José Abreu received a sobering snapshot of his current standing. His leash already appears shorter than it ever got during his dreadful debut season with the Houston Astros, a fate his freefall down the batting order only reinforces.

Entering the team’s four-game series against the Texas Rangers, Abreu had batted lower than sixth just twice in his major-league career. Friday and Saturday, manager Joe Espada slotted Abreu seventh in the order, a spot the struggling slugger might occupy for the foreseeable future.

The Astros employ enough talent to mask Abreu’s marked decline, but burying him in the batting order isn’t a foolproof plan. He arrived for his second at-bat Saturday with the bases loaded and Texas starter Jon Gray staring down an early exit.

Houston had already scored twice against Gray, who neared 30 pitches while José Ureña warmed up in the bullpen. Gray ran the count full against Abreu and spun a putaway slider. It landed in the other batter’s box. Abreu swung anyway and struck a 69.4 mph pop fly to shallow right field that stranded three base runners.

A game Houston could’ve led instead stayed tied. Abreu’s flyout allowed Gray to begin another frame, too, shielding the Rangers’ vulnerable middle relief for a few more moments.

Abreu ended the fifth with another flyout, after Chas McCormick worked a two-out walk. Houston stranded 10 base runners in the 7-2 loss. From the seven-hole, Abreu was responsible for four of them. An eighth-inning strikeout by two pitchers — Josh Sborz for two strikes and José Leclerc for the third after Sborz sustained an injury — offered a nasty nadir to a dismal first nine games. Espada could have pinch hit Mauricio Dubón or Jon Singleton but declined to elaborate on why he stuck with Abreu.

“I got a ton of confidence in Abreu. I’m not going to talk about strategy,” Espada said. “José Abreu has been a really good hitter for a very long time, and I have 100 percent confidence in José that, at some point, he’s going to start hitting.”

José Abreu is batting .077 with one walk and no extra-base hits this season. (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

Expecting Espada to publicly pan a respected veteran is foolish. Dusty Baker deployed the same tactics last season, and it earned immense respect inside Houston’s clubhouse, where Abreu is revered for his work ethic and ability to lead by example. Abreu has earned time to work through his difficulties.

Before facing Rangers left-hander Cody Bradford on Friday, Espada used McCormick’s career-long success against southpaws to justify moving him ahead of Abreu in the lineup.

Saturday, opposite a right-handed Gray, Abreu remained hitting seventh behind McCormick, perhaps signaling a more permanent move from a first-year manager who hasn’t been afraid to take more urgent action than his predecessor.

Last season, Baker allowed Abreu to start 106 games hitting fourth or fifth, a byproduct of not just Baker’s almost unshakeable faith in veteran players but also the organization’s insistence that Abreu remains a run producer and faint hope that Abreu would morph back into the player who slashed .304/.378/.446 with the Chicago White Sox a season earlier.

Abreu has never approached those numbers, save for a brief resurgence last September and some pop in the playoffs. He hit .237 with a .680 OPS last season and has started this one 2-for-26. The team intends to build in scheduled off days or starts at designated hitter in hopes it will aid Abreu, who took up Pilates this winter in hopes of changing his body for better results.

That the Astros must tailor the workload of a player paid $19.5 million to produce in the middle of their order is an apt symbol of the club’s predicament. That he has already fallen to the bottom of the order after nine games further illustrates the plight Houston could face throughout the season. Singleton, the only natural backup first baseman on Houston’s bench, inspires little confidence as an alternative.

Spring training standout Joey Loperfido started at first base for Triple-A Sugar Land on Saturday and smacked his minor-league-leading fifth home run of the season, but the team hasn’t exposed him enough at first base this year to merit an imminent promotion. Loperfido also has 12 strikeouts in his first 27 at-bats. Unless Loperfido or another minor leaguer can force the club’s hand, Abreu must continue to play.

Abreu is not even a month into the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million free-agent deal he signed when Houston had no general manager. Owner Jim Crane said Hall of Fame first baseman Jeff Bagwell, one of his most trusted confidants, helped to orchestrate the deal in the absence of an actual head of baseball operations.

No precedent exists in Crane’s ownership tenure for eating that amount of money, and nine games is nowhere near enough of a sample to start pondering whether this is a possibility. Two or three productive games can change the entire tenor of this conversation.

Assigning any sweeping conclusions to April production is silly, but Abreu’s anemia last season only heightens his struggles. That the team is off to its worst start since 2011 only exacerbates them.

Abreu alone is not responsible for a 2-7 start. Houston’s bullpen has a 7.31 ERA. Alex Bregman has a .564 OPS. General manager Dana Brown did little to fortify Houston’s middle relief or starting pitching depth this winter. Five of the team’s first seven series are against playoff teams from last season, clubs competent enough to expose all of Houston’s flaws.

All are on display during this dismal start. Only two other Astros teams have authored a worse record after their first nine games. The last one in 2011 lost 106 games.

“Starting off the season, it doesn’t define the season you’re going to have,” said second baseman Jose Altuve, the only member of the 2011 team still around. “We still have 150-something games more, and a lot of things can happen, and we can turn things around.”

Abreu must find a way to factor in.

(Top photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)