BIOGRAPHY
Cristian Javier was born March 26, 1997, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is a pitcher in the MLB.
Javier signed with the Houston Astros as an international free agent on March 18, 2015.
He spent his first professional season with the Dominican Summer League Astros, going 4–0 with a 2.13 ERA over 42 1⁄3 innings. He played 2016 with the Gulf Coast Astros and Greeneville Astros, pitching to a 4–2 record and 2.29 ERA with 66 strikeouts in 51 innings, and 2017 with the Tri-City ValleyCats, Quad Cities River Bandits and Buies Creek Astros, compiling a 3–0 record and 2.25 ERA in 14 games (nine starts). He pitched in 2018 with Quad Cities and Buies Creek, going 7–6 with a 2.70 ERA with 146 strikeouts over 110 innings. He opened the 2019 season with the Fayetteville Woodpeckers before being promoted to the Corpus Christi Hooks on May 15. He was promoted to the Round Rock Express on August 23. Over 26 games (18 starts) with the three clubs, Javier went 8-3 with a 1.74 ERA, striking out 170 over 113 2⁄3 innings.
Javier was added to the Astros 40–man roster following the 2019 season.
On July 25, 2020, Javier made his MLB debut, pitching 1 scoreless inning against the Seattle Mariners. On July 29, 2020, he made his first MLB career start against the Los Angeles Dodgers. On August 4, he received his first MLB career win.
On April 22, 2021, he became the first Astros pitcher to record the first eight outs of a game by strikeout since Jim Deshaies in 1986. On a five-inning performance, he set a new career-high for himself with nine strikeouts and one walk on no earned runs.
After four scoreless relief appearances over 8+1⁄3 innings to begin the 2022 season, the Astros made Javier their sixth starter, and he won his starting debut on April 27. In five innings versus the Texas Rangers, he allowed two runs, four hits, and two walks. He started the May 3 contest versus the Mariners without allowing a hit until the fourth inning when Ty France led off with a single; Javier permitted two hits in all over 5+1⁄3 innings as the Astros shutout the Mariners 4–0. Javier tied his career high with nine strikeouts on May 25, keeping the Cleveland Guardians hitless until Ernie Clement singled with two outs in the fifth inning. Javier totaled 5+2⁄3 scoreless innings in which he earned the win in a 2–1 final score.
On June 25, 2022, Javier threw the first seven innings to lead his team to a combined no-hitter against the New York Yankees, starting opposite former Astros ace Gerrit Cole. In that game, Javier also collected 13 strikeouts to establish a new career-best. In his next start on July 1, 2022, Javier topped his strike-out record against the Los Angeles Angels with 14 over seven innings, giving up just one run on one hit, with no walks. With 27 strikeouts in total over his last two starts with one hit allowed, he set a Major League Baseball record for most strikeouts with only one hit allowed over a two-game span. He became the fourth pitcher in franchise history to attain 13 or more strikeouts in consecutive starts, and the first since Cole in 2019.
Javier's concluded the 2022 regular season with a 2.54 ERA and 11–9 record over 30 total appearances, 25 games started, 148+2⁄3 IP, 89 hits allowed, 52 BB, 194 strikeouts and 3.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), all of which established new career-bests to that point. He ranked 10th in WAR among AL pitchers, and his 194 strikeouts ranked seventh, tied with Framber Valdez for the team lead. Javier's 5.4 hits per nine innings (H/9) and nine losses led all Astros pitchers, and his 11.7 K/9 led Astros starters.
In Game 4 of the 2022 World Series at Citizens Bank Park, Javier delivered the first six innings of a combined no-hitter and 5–0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Called by catcher Christian Vázquez, it tied the series at 2–2. Bryan Abreu and Rafael Montero both followed with one inning each, and like the no-hit contest in New York, Pressly closed out the ninth. Thus, Javier became the first to start in multiple combined no-hitters in the major leagues. The third no-hitter in MLB postseason history, it was the second in World Series play, following Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956. The Astros defeated the Phillies in six games to give Javier his first World Series title.
