Astros: Cristian Javier dominates in coffee stain game

The Houston Astros snag their second consecutive win over the Seattle Mariners on the shoulders of Cristian Javier. As the right-hander continues to show endurance, his stint at the alternate training site looks to have paid off.

While the Astros only ran up two runs on the second place Mariners, their two RBIs came from the bats of power hitters Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, who is honestly the unluckiest hitter in baseball. As Carlos Correa reached base in two of his three at bats by a walk, there is a case for him to hit leadoff and Jose Altuve to go back to his roots in the three-hole.

While the Astros bats totaled six hits, Cristian Javier goes seven strong innings.

Cristian Javier tossed a career high 107 pitches through seven innings of scoreless work, but a fun headline from Tuesday’s game is that the the right-hander spilled his coffee on himself before the game. While this is nothing but a fun coincidence, Javier dominated in his best outing of his young career.

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Through seven scoreless innings, the calmness of Javier brought six strikeouts to the boxscore, while only allowing two hits and three walks. The right-hander is absolutely demolishing opposing hitters (.155 BA) and is striking out batters 32.9% of the time. In four starts this season, the right-hander has gone 20.2 innings and is increasing his total innings per each outing.

Another highlight from Tuesday’s game was Brooks Raley’s one-two-three inning in the top of the eighth. Although having his own personal struggles early, the left-hander is making adjustments, as he struck out two and popped out another to the catcher.

The Astros are now above .500 for the first time since April 13 and will look to win the series on Wednesday at 7:10 p.m. As Zack Greinke hits the bump, Houston’s bats will matchup against right-hander Justin Dunn.