Dusty Baker grins.

“I’m spoiled,” the Astros skipper says. “Winning spoils you.”

Being defending World Series champions isn’t enough. No team has repeated as champs since the Yankees won back-to-back-to-back titles from 1998 to 2000. Houston has its sights set on being the next. Winning three titles in seven years would be remarkable. But just ask a fan base — yes, Baker opines, they’re spoiled too — that had thousands lined up for hours at the team store in the middle of the night to buy exclusive gilded merchandise: this is the golden era of Astros baseball.

Gold may be the color du jour for Houston, which will wear special uniforms befitting that on Opening Day and again for the March 31 ring ceremony. But it hasn’t been a particularly rosy spring.

Second baseman Jose Altuve, who had surgery on a broken thumb, is expected to miss two months. Starter Lance McCullers Jr. has no timetable back from a forearm strain. Left fielder Michael Brantley will likely be sidelined longer than 10 days on the injured list. Yordan Alvarez, who has been slowed with a hand injury, should be ready for Opening Day but new general manager Dana Brown said he will be eased in.

“It will be his spring training early in the season,” Brown said Saturday of Alvarez, who is still routinely hitting balls with triple-digit exit velocity. (The Astros did get good news on outfielder Kyle Tucker, who suffered a minor ankle sprain during the World Baseball Classic and whose Opening Day status never seemed to be in jeopardy.)

Last year’s club avoided any significant in-season injuries. This year’s Astros still have a lethal bullpen, a ridiculous lineup — which was bolstered with the offseason signing of José Abreu — and a solid rotation. But you don’t have to tell a baseball lifer like Baker all of the things that have to fall into place to be the last team standing.