Cristian Javier Must Save Dusty Baker From Himself, Astros’ Championship Visions in Game 4 — Luckily, This Underrated Side Ace Is Built to Do It

PHILADELPHIA — As Citizens Bank Park shook (sometimes seismically) and those damn bells kept going off, Lance McCullers Jr. sometimes seemed to be looking to the heavens. Maybe, he was just following the path of all those skyrocketing home runs the Philadelphia Phillies hit off him. All those moon shots that Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker kept leaving him out there to give up.

Luckily, these Astros still don’t need any divine intervention in this World Series. They just need the guy who should have started Game 3 to pitch like the emerging young ace he is in Game 4 Wednesday night. Cristian Javier has been this championship caliber Astros team’s third best pitcher all season. The fact that he wasn’t locked in as the third starter in these playoffs made little sense from the beginning. That’s a first guess that many smart statistical minds and at least one dumb sports writer made before Houston’s postseason run even started.

Javier more than showed he can handle a stage this intense when he pitched brilliantly in Yankee Stadium in Game 3, having been moved up in the rotation because of McCullers’ champagne bottle celebration injury. He should have gotten this Game 3 in madhouse Philadelphia too. Cristian Javier should have had the chance to turn Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Co. into mad guessers before they could ever build the momentum of a five home run game — and light up this city even more than than it already was with a 7-0 wipeout of Baker’s Astros.

But none of that matters now. Now, it’s just about Cristian Javier saving Dusty Baker from himself, from the veteran manager’s own instincts. And rescuing the Astros’ championship visions.

Simply put that’s what this Game 4 means. It’s hard to imagine the Astros avoiding a third straight lost World Series since 2017 if they fall down 3-1 to these now supercharged Phillies. It’s on Javier — and a suddenly slumbering Houston offense — to make sure that never comes into play.

In a way, Cristian Javier may be the perfect pitcher for this moment.

“I feel good,” veteran Astros catcher Martin Maldonado says of having Javier in tonight’s Game 4. “Javier was one of our best pitchers — if not one of the best pitchers in the Big Leagues — all season. We believe in what he can do.

“I know he’s going to stay calm. I know nothing’s going to get to him. We’ll make pitches and go after it.”

Dusty Baker always wants to give his veterans the benefit of the doubt. That’s part of what makes him such a respected and beloved manager. But there needs to be a limit. And Baker keeps trusting McCullers in a World Series game when last season’s ace clearly does not have it. The Astros pay with more home runs, more Phillies’ hitting momentum, a loss that looms even larger than a 2-1 series deficit needs to feel.

This 7-0 loss doesn’t make Lance McCullers any less of a standup guy. Or any less one of the true Houston ride-or-die athletes. In fact, McCullers is more standup than ever after this World Series disappointment that comes on the fifth anniversary of his Game 7 start in Dodgers Stadium that earned Houston its lone baseball championship. He refuses to make any excuses whatsoever, even when several are offered to him. He dismisses all the pitch tipping Twitter theories, squashing any notion it’s on anyone but him.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say anything like that,” McCullers says when the idea of him tipping pitches is brought up for the third or fourth time. “I got whooped. End of story.”

It doesn’t need to be the end of these 2022 Astros’ story though. This team is nothing if not accountable. It’s part of what makes this Astros team one of the most likable in all of baseball (even if many fans outside of Houston still refuse to see this).

“Javier was one of our best pitchers — if not one of the best pitchers in the Big Leagues — all season. We believe in what he can do. I know he’s going to stay calm. I know nothing’s going to get to him.” — Astros catcher Martin Maldonado on Game 4 starter Cristian Javier

McCullers is not the only Astro who gives the Phillies all the credit for this lost Houston Tuesday night, while vowing to do more. Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez, who turned a similar 2-1 deficit series around in Boston last October, stands at his locker and takes individual questions from different reporters.

“Obviously, I think they’ve done a really good job,” Alvarez tells PaperCity when I ask about the Phillies’ pitching plan against this Houston lineup. “They’ve been studying us all year. They’re a team that we only saw once in the regular season. We haven’t faced a lot of their pitchers so I think they’ve come in with a really good plan.

“As you can see.”

Now, it’s up to Alvarez, who is 1 for 11 through three games of this World Series after going 2 for 20 in last year’s World Series loss to the Braves, to adjust and prove why he’s one of the best hitters on the planet. With the Astros down 2-1 in the American League Championship Series and facing a jacked up Fenway Park in Game 4 last October, Yordan did exactly that. He ripped off 9 for 13 blitz with five RBI and five runs scored over the last three games of the series.

Cristian Javier, Yordan Alvarez and the Astros Comeback Blueprint

The blueprint is there for how these Astros can come back from this 2-1 World Series deficit. But it starts with winning Game 4 by any means necessary. By showing the type of urgency that Dusty Baker strangely seemed to be lacking when it came to McCullers in Tuesday night’s Game 3.

There is no easy-to-see road map if these Astros fall down 3-1 in the series and find themselves facing an elimination game in Philadelphia on Thursday night.

“I try not to think about anything really in the past,” third baseman Alex Bregman says after his Astros are held scoreless for the first time these playoffs. “Just try to move forward and worry about the next pitch. And what we’ve got to do.”

That starts with Cristian Javier in many ways. The largely unimposing looking 25-year-old who is a symbol of how good the young Astros on this roster already are in many ways. Javier has no hit stuff at his very best with his pitches often as mysterious to opposing hitters as a woman in a pulp noir detective novel.

“He’s a stud,” Bregman says of Javier. “He’s been one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. We’re super confident in him. And I’m confident that the rest of this group is ready to bounce back.”

“They’ve been studying us all year. They’re a team that we only saw once in the regular season. We haven’t faced a lot of their pitchers so I think they’ve come in with a really good plan.” — Yordan Alvarez on the Phillies’ pitching plan

Tuesday night turns into a barrage of Philadelphia home runs. Bryce Harper in the first inning. Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh in the second inning. Kyle Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins in the fifth inning. Somehow with McCullers still out there.

Dusty Baker leaves Lance McCullers in to give up five home runs, more home runs than any single pitcher has given up in one game in the 118 year history of the World Series.

Yes, apparently there was even more urgency in 1904 than shown in this game. As Citizens Bank Park’s giant 26,000-LED-lights Liberty Bell keeps swaying and the bell sound effects keep chiming between the red fireworks exploding into the sky.

“You feel it, right?” Bohm says of this Phillies’ madhouse atmosphere. “It’s a big momentum game. Scoring a couple runs and then getting a shutdown inning and then coming back scoring a couple more. It just keeps the ball rolling.

“I think when you got an atmosphere like that and it just keeps growing, I think just the momentum continues.”

Baker never turns to Luis Garcia, Bryan Abreu or anyone else in the Astros’ rested bullpen until it’s too late in this Game 3. So it’s up to Cristian Javier to put sudden brakes on all that Phillies’ goodwill homering in Game 4 tonight.

“Yeah, I think we have a great amount of trust in all of our pitchers,” Alvarez says. “They’ve been doing a really good job. With Javier, obviously (Wednesday) we expect great things out of him.”

If Javier and the Astros can win Game 4, suddenly the script flips again in this World Series. Then the Astros have the luxury of choosing between starting Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez in Game 5 on Thursday night. And don’t be shocked if it is Framber rather than Verlander. Especially if elimination is not on the line.

That would allow Verlander who’s already given this team so much coming off Tommy John surgery and nearly two seasons away, two more extra days of rest. And it would also preserve the possibility of Valdez, a workhorse in his prime, coming in for a short relief outing in Game 7 if necessary.

Of course, that all depends on Cristian Javier and the Astros winning Game 4. They have the right pitcher for the moment.

“We know we have a good team,” says Astros rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña, the last man in the clubhouse on this night. “We’ve been doing it all year. It’s just a matter of going out there one more time and playing our type of baseball.”

With the young emerging ace on the mound. It’s Cristian Javier’s time. Just in time.