Astros defensive blunder was bad but Cristian Javier problem looks worse

The Houston Astros saw their five-game winning streak broken as they took on the Athletics for the series opener in Sacramento. The story of the game might have been Yainer Diaz's brutal blunder when he allowed Tyler Soderstrom's high pop-up to drop with two outs in the bottom of the fourth. The play allowed the Athletics to bust the game open, but it was not the most critical development of the night.

The misplay chased starter Cristian Javier from the game with the Astros trailing 5-1. Rule 5 pick Roddery Muñoz, who was already on thin ice, came in to throw gas on the fire, giving up five more runs to extend the deficit to 10-1 before the inning mercifully came to a close.

The headline, though, is Javier, who wasn't sharp before Diaz's gaffe and is quickly becoming a problem that Houston might not be able to afford to deal with for much longer.

Cristian Javier's struggles with control are bad news for the Astros

Javier looked to be the linchpin that could make the rotation work despite all the question marks coming into the season. While he's missed a lot of time recovering from Tommy John surgery, he's the only non-Hunter Brown starter with any kind of pre-existing track record.

When Javier's at his best, it's because he's commanding the strike zone and generating a lot of whiffs. For his career, his average fastball velocity sits at just 93.2 mph, meaning his ability to locate within the strike zone and just outside of it to rack up strikeouts and weak contact is key. He's never had electric stuff, but he's typically done well at manipulating the zone.

That hasn't been the case in 2026. Javier is walking batters at an astronomically high 21.4% clip, while he's only yielded strikeouts at a pathetic 7.1% rate.

This was a problem in his first start against the Los Angeles Angels. In that outing, he allowed six runs over 4⅔ innings and struggled to get hitters to chase outside of the zone while simultaneously failing to get whiffs within it.

Against the Athletics, he had similar issues. As you can see from his first performance and now this one, when he misses the zone, it's by a wide margin, and when he's throwing strikes, they're not well located and are often in places where hitters can do damage. That's a recipe for disaster.

"I’ve been working on some stuff mechanically, but I think what happened today was I felt like the ball was a little bit too slippery, so I couldn’t get a good grip to be able to finish with the pitch,” Javier said via Brian McTaggart of MLB.com.

The slippery ball thing sounds like a lame excuse, and doesn't apply to the same thing happening against the Angels. If mechanics are truly the issue, he'll need to get it figured out fast. Tatsuya Imai and Mike Burrows have struggled in the early going, and while Lance McCullers Jr.'s first outing was superb, it will take a lot more to be able to trust him.

Javier is still the key, because even if guys like Imai and Burrows reach their potential, he's the one who can solidify the unit. If it's mechanics he needs to get those fixed right away, otherwise, he could see himself pulled for Ryan Weiss or one of the other unproven rotation options the Astros are sitting on.