The Astros left their stars at home vs. the Red Sox

The Astros’ side was a different matter. Manager Dusty Baker’s batting order included relative obscurities with the last names Dawson (Ronnie, not Andre), Stubbs (Garrett, not Franklin or Drew), and Mayfield (Jack, definitely not Baker).

Alex Bregman did not make the two-plus-hour trip from the Astros’ camp in Kissimmee. Neither did Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, or George Springer. There was not a single Astro that baseball-reference.com considered a starter from last year’s team. Aledmys Diaz, who had 247 plate appearances last year as Correa’s understudy, was the most experienced Astro in the lineup. The entire lineup combined for 640 plate appearances in the majors last season, or 50 fewer than Bregman alone.

The most notable member of the champion 2017 Astros to put in an appearance at JetBlue Thursday was pitcher Collin McHugh, who stopped in to sign a one-year contract with the Red Sox.

The absence of any Astro with legitimate name recognition was naturally a cause of suspicion given the events of the offseason. The Astros were busted in a sign-stealing scandal that cost general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch their jobs and has led many fans to put a mental asterisk on their 2017 World Series title.

The collateral damage reached Boston, too, with former Astros bench coach Alex Cora losing his managerial job with the Red Sox for his role as a mastermind of the Astros’ cheating. The Red Sox, accused of a sign-stealing scheme of their own during Cora’s tenure, are still waiting to learn the consequences.

For now, the Astros are the sole wearers of the black hats, baseball’s bad guys, the sport’s most collectively disliked franchise in recent memory. They’ve been booed lustily in opposing territory this spring, and seven Houston batters were hit by pitches through the first week of spring training games.

Perhaps it’s wise for preservation purposes to keep theelite players away from road crowds for a while. But manager Dusty Baker, Hinch’s replacement and a calming presence who each day must face questions about a scandal he had nothing to do with, said he left his stars home for case-by-case reasons.

“You’ve got Altuve who is sick,’’ said Baker, holding court in the Astros’ dugout two hours before the game. “You’ve got [Yordan] Alvarez who is dealing with his knee. Bregman and Altuve went to Lakeland [to play the Tigers Wednesday]. I try to play them every other day. So no, it’s not out of the ordinary at all.”

Baker did acknowledge that his roster was a little short of recognizable major league talent. Teams are supposed to bring a minimum of four regulars to each road game.

“The hardest part is having four regulars that can go, because we don’t have a utility-type team,” said Baker. “We were told Diaz didn’t count, and he has four years in the big leagues.”

Baker was asked who actually does count.

“Bregman,’’ he deadpanned. “Altuve … ”

So this starless sky of a lineup he brought with him had nothing to do with avoiding a potentially loud and aggravated reception from Boston fans?

“Hell, no,’’ said Baker. “That was the furthest thing from my mind.”

Perhaps it was because all of the familiar names and suspected trash-can bangers were not in attendance, but it turned out that there was no obvious negative response to the Astros anyway.

There were no boo birds among the snowbirds. No hoots or verbal jabs were aimed at leadoff hitter Myles Straw when he dug in. A foul pole to foul pole walk through the concourse in the first inning revealed not a single anti-Astros sign in the crowd.

Signs are not technically prohibited in JetBlue’s ballpark rules (don’t try to bring in beach balls, flag poles, lawn chairs, firearms, or knives of any size, however). Three ticket takers working Gate B told me that they hadn’t seen a single sign all day.

Of course, maybe Red Sox fans should be hesitant to let the Astros have it quite yet since any punishment for their own team’s alleged sign-stealing scheme is pending, and has been pending for a somewhat alarming amount of time.

To totally hate on the Astros before knowing your own team’s consequences would be akin to playing baseball in a glass house, something Baker subtly noted before the game.

“Better be careful of the reception they’re giving,’’ he said. “It could be here, too.”