Yankees were just start of Cristian Javier's run of domination

PHILADELPHIA — The Yankees can take solace. It wasn’t just them.

Cristian Javier does not discriminate. At some point in 2022, he basically stopped giving up hits, and it wasn’t just against Aaron Judge and Co.

Javier has a fastball that hardly awes with its velocity. But it is illustrious because it is an illusion. He slings it from a low three-quarters arm slot with lots of backspin, giving the optical illusion that it is rising simply because it is not descending as other fastballs do. The Phillies actually had been strong against fastballs up in the zone this season. Not this version. You can’t hit what you can’t see.

And the Phillies of Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber were as helpless as the Yankees of Judge and Anthony Rizzo. The Phillies, in fact, went from in control of this World Series and supported by a joyous home crowd to being on the wrong end of history and being booed. During Game 4. Of the World Series. The mood at Citizens Bank Ballpark morphed from sea of red to see us dread in 24 hours.

Like he did on June 25 against the Yankees, Javier did the heavy lifting in a no-hitter. This, of course, however, is not June 25 and the 71st game of the regular season. This was just the second time a team was held without a hit in a World Series contest. The other was Don Larsen’s perfecto in Game 5 in 1956 for the Yankees against the Dodgers.

Javier was not perfect. Just overwhelming. He walked Harper in the second and No. 9 hitter Brandon Marsh on four pitches in the third. That seemed to lock Javier in. He retired the final 11 Phillies he faced — six on strikeouts, five in a row at one point. But he was at 97 pitches. And this is 2022, not 1956. So Astros manager Dusty Baker summoned the best of his pen rather than see if Javier could get to the finish line and own the night exclusively.

Christian Javier threw six no-hit innings against the Phillies on Tuesday.

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Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly were as dominant as Javier in completing a 5-0 victory — the third-ever postseason no-hitter (Roy Halladay did it for the Phillies against the Reds in Game 1 of a 2010 Division Series).

This tied the 118th World Series at two games apiece and left this as perhaps the biggest question — where had the Astros been hiding a weapon like Javier? He had not pitched in 11 days, since holding the Yankees to one hit in 5 ¹/₃ innings in outdoing Gerrit Cole in a 5-0 Houston triumph in ALCS Game 3.

The Astros used Lance McCullers Jr. in World Series Game 3 on Tuesday and he was shelled for a postseason-record five homers as the Phillies, at least temporarily, seized control of the best-of-seven. It means McCullers is lined up to start a Game 7, if necessary, on full rest. But how would Javier not get the ball that day even on short rest? He currently has risen to the hardest-to-hit pitcher in the world. Which is amazing considering his story.

Signed for just $10,000 out of the Dominican in March 2015 just as he was turning 18 — about two years older than standard — Javier has graduated steadily from afterthought to ace-like. The 25-year-old righty threw 148 ²/₃ innings this year and his .170 batting average against was the best for anyone who threw at least 125 innings.

Christian Javier struck out nine on Tuesday.

Charles Wenzelberg/Tausi Insider

The Yankees faced him three times this year, twice in the regular season, and overall managed three hits and one run in 17 ¹/₃ innings. In his last 38 overall innings, including Game 4 and dating to Sept. 14 in the regular season, Javier has surrendered one run in 38 innings and batters are 8-for-117 against him. That is a .068 average. He has pitched at least five shutout innings on two or fewer hits in six consecutive starts now.

Javier was given the assignment to pitch the Astros back into this series and counter a wave elevated by a crowd of 45,693 Wednesday that included Bruce Springsteen. Javier was clearly The Boss. The Phillies never got close to a hit against him to lose for the first time at home this postseason after six victories. Just two balls left the infield against Javier, who struck out nine.

He did this throwing his four-seam fastball on 70 of 97 pitches. He averaged 93.8 mph. The average of a postseason fastball to begin Game 4 was 95.3. But with Javier, it is not speed as much as deception. Now you see it, now you don’t. He is an illusionist.

And on Wednesday night, he was most definitely magic.

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