A Bad Day to Have a Bad Game. But Hope Lies With Javier's Invisiball Tonight

McCullers, the bats, & Dusty Baker all have a bad game as the Phillies hammer 5 home runs & shut out the Astros. Cristian Javier starts tonight, & his fastball is a matchup advantage over Phillie bats

You can blame Lance McCullers for the execution of this pitches. You can blame to offense for not scoring a run against a parade of average hurlers. You can blame Dusty Baker for waiting too long to pull McCullers or for starting him instead of Cristian Javier.

In the end, they are all at fault.

The Astros lost Game 3 of the World Series 7-0 in a game that didn’t seem that close. That puts them down 2-1 to the Phillies and needing to win 3 of the next 4 games to win the Series.

Why did the Astros have such a bad game? It could be for any number of analytical or psychological reasons. But figuring those out in any one baseball game are really hard to know.

And the combination of the elements of Game 3 make it hard to pinpoint one particular area that cost the Astros the game. The starting pitching was as bad as the hitting which was as bad as the managerial decisions. If one of those got better, it probably doesn’t change the outcome. It’s hard to win when you give up 7 runs, or score 0.

Lance McCullers had lousy execution on his pitches last night. Phillies hitters did not on their swings.

In baseball, this happens sometimes. The Pirates swept the Dodgers and the A’s swept the Astros during series in the regular season. They were notable at the time because they were unusual, but they obviously did not change the track of those two teams across 162 baseball games.

But the Astros do not have 162 games. They have 4 to play.

And more importantly, they have 1 game to turn around the series.

Game 4 now stands as an extremely pivotal game for the Astros. And there are two reasons for this. The first is that it’s a heck of a lot better to be tied 2-2 in a series than to be down 3-1. If you are down 2-2, your odds of winning the series are just above 50%. But if you’re down 3-1, yikes.

The second reason is that the Astros seem to have some advantages in the pitching matchups in Game 5 and 6. In Game 5, the Phillies will pitch Noah Syndergaard, who was a mid-level pitcher in the regular season and who the Phillies have tried to minimize this postseason. He’ll face Justin Verlander, who, despite his bad start in Game 1, is really good. And in Game 6, the Phillies will start Zack Wheeler. The Phillies have given him extra rest and his velocity was down in Game 2, raising questions about whether he is injured or gassed. The Astros counter with Framber Valdez.

Tonight though, the Phillies pitch their best starter in Aaron Nola. The Astros hit him around in Game 1, but in the regular season, he was excellent. In fact, he inspired a headline for an article by a top pitching analyst that asked if Nola was “actually the best starting pitcher in baseball this season.”

The Astros counter with Cristian Javier. Javier has of course been excellent this season with the 2nd lowest ERA on the staff. He was excellent down the stretch, allowing only 1 run in 28.1 innings in September, striking out 37 and allowing only 8 walks. That has continued in the postseason as he has given up only 1 run and 2 hits in 7.2 innings.

Some smart observers think that Javier is their best pitcher.

Mike Mitchell @MikeMitchNH

Cristian Javier is their best pitcher.

Dusty Baker obviously disagrees as he has used Javier less than other pitchers, but today he will turn to Javier and I expect good results.

Plus, Javier seems to be a good matchup against the Phillies in particular. In his newsletter previewing Game 3, Joe Sheehan noted that “The Phillies hit breaking balls very well, eighth in wOBA against all of them, also eighth against sliders and curves specifically. If you look at their production in this postseason, much of it has come off those breaking pitches.”

Instead, you beat the Phillies by throwing a good fastball. To quote Sheehan, “[t]hey don’t hit good velocity, but they hammer the stuff that moves.”

And Javier can throw the fastball. Cristian Javier’s 4-seam fastball—nicknamed the invisiball because its deceptive movement makes it hard to batters to track it to the plate—was the 18th most valuable pitch in baseball this season, worth -18 runs according to Statcast metrics. Opponents hit for a batting average of .183 against that pitch with a slugging percentage of .326 and a weighted on base percentage of .282.

Javier’s fastball and the matchup against the off-speed loving Phillies gives me confidence that the Astros can turn the Series around tonight.

They need to.