Astros’ ‘electric’ Cristian Javier no-hit the Phillies through six, and they could see him again

Even with so much of his team’s World Series fate in his hands, Cristian Javier made his game plan against the Phillies sound so simple: Stay calm, stay focused …

Also, one other thing.

“Attack the hitters as quickly as possible,” Javier said later inside Citizens Bank Park, after his six-inning no-hit contribution to World Series history, after his parents made it from the Dominican Republic, his father seeing his son pitch in the big leagues for the first time, his parents nonetheless predicting to him that he would throw a no-hitter.

They were typically proud parents. And they’d seen his stuff.

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They saw four Astros pitchers combine to win Game 4 of the World Series, and all the Phillies batters who faced them walk away without a hit, the second no-hitter in World Series history, 65 years after Don Larsen’s perfect game, a 5-0 final, emphasis on the 0.

“He was electric,” said Astros manager Dusty Baker of this 25-year-old who has gone six straight postseason starts without giving up a run.

“He was very, very electric tonight with the fastball,” said Astros catcher Christian Vazquez, who asked for only two pitches, fastball and slider, adding, “I think that’s the best fastball right now in baseball.”

Almost all were thrown at 93 or 94 mph, not breaking any speed records.

“Shows you the best pitch is still the well-located fastball,” said Baker, after Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh were the only Phillies batters to reach base against Javier, both on walks. No coincidence they bat left-handed. Righty batters have hit just .143 against Javier in his three-year big-league career. This season, his 11.74 strikeouts per nine innings ranked second only to Shohei Ohtani of the Angels.

Javier struck out the side in the fourth, then began the fifth with Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott striking out the same way, Javier hitting the exact bottom left corner, 93 mph, perfect to the outside corner to Bohm, to the inside corner to Stott.

Jean Segura broke the strikeout string with a foul pop.

“When you think you have a chance to hit the fastball, he throws the slider,” Vazquez said. “It’s a big slider.”

Did the Phillies ever really think they could hit the fastball?

“When they don’t show you a new swing on the fastball, we continue to throw it,” Vazquez said.

It all had started almost benignly, half of Citizens Bank Park cheering a leadoff fly ball by Kyle Schwarber, thinking Tuesday’s fireworks could carry over to Wednesday and maybe that ball would keep carrying, too.

Schwarber’s fly ball landed two steps in front of the warning track in left field. That was as close as the home fans ever got to cheering solid contact against Javier.

Any of the 46,411 who were in this park in 2010 for Roy Halladay’s no-hit playoff masterpiece against the Reds, if they were part of the 45,693 here Wednesday, they all had to realize that this was every bit as much of a masterpiece, just a mini-masterpiece, a modern-day masterpiece.

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Javier’s contribution went for six innings, through 97 pitches. Only seven balls hit into fair territory, only three even reaching the outfield. Of the 20 batters Javier faced, he got 16 to two-strike counts, striking out nine.

Then out he came. His manager, who has seen it all, including being with the other guys when Halladay threw that no-hitter, was asked if he ever imagined a pitcher would come out of a World Series game with a clean sheet.

“It’s baseball in 2022,” Dusty Baker said, explaining that the plan in advance was to keep Javier to 100 pitches.

Javier had converted late to pitching from being an outfielder. He signed for a mere $10,000 bonus he’d gotten from the Astros in 2015 just before his 18th birthday. Scouts loved his mechanics and that cold-blooded demeanor that already had earned him a nickname, EL REPTIL.

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“I really didn’t focus on the signing bonus, I just gave my best every year,” said Javier, who kept those mechanics as he advanced in the organization, being named the minor league pitcher of the year in 2019.

Baker talked about how “this is a world stage here” and “this guy was as cool as if it was June or July.”

This guy making $749,100 this season had done this same thing in June, throwing seven no-hit innings against the Yankees, at Yankee Stadium.

“Man, this is a strange series,” Baker said. “They hit five home runs yesterday, no hits today. This is a daily game, filled with daily emotions.”

This sentence should potentially scare Phillies fans more than any other in this World Series: Appearing for the Astros in Game 7, Cristian Javier.

Baker was asked about how much Javier could potentially go on Sunday with three days rest, and he started to say, “I don’t want to …”

Except Baker then broke into a laugh.

“I thought about this today,” the manager said, thinking that if there is a Game 7, two or three innings seemed possible.

The better question with this guy might be, what isn’t possible?

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