When he is right, Cristian Javier is among one of the most difficult pitchers to face in baseball. And his four-seam fastball is a true unicorn: low release point, good ride, flat horizontal approach angle, and good command. While he may have not been dominant in ALCS Game 3, his five called strikes, seven whiffs, and 11 foul balls are enough to say that he had good feel for the pitch. That showed against Evan Carter.

Carter has been a force for the Rangers in these playoffs, and his play earned him a move up to the third spot in the lineup against Javier. But the Astros righty had no issues in their first two matchups of the night, striking him out both times. In the first at-bat, Javier gave Carter a steady dose of heaters, and while the rookie was able to work his way to a 3–2 count, Javier switched up locations on him and dotted a four-seamer on the low and away corner:

You can tell from Carter’s posture and swing that he was fully prepared to stay upright so he could get on top of a high heater. The previous five pitches were at or above the top of the zone, and the best he had done was to foul one off. Javier had no reason to go away from the plan, so he didn’t; Martín Maldonado set up inside to go back to the high heater. But while Javier missed his spot, Carter was fully locked in at the top of the zone, making the pitch a surprise; his body adjustment to get to the low ball happened too late, and he whiffed through it. Sometimes misses go in your favor.

In the second at-bat, Maldonado mixed up the pitch calls and had Carter completely off balance. He got an easy called strike on a slider to start, then followed it up with a changeup that faded below the zone for a swing and a miss. Carter was in their back pocket after that: he took a four-seamer out of the zone, then whiffed through a middle-middle slider. Since he was still fully committed to the high four-seamer, the velocity differential was all Javier needed to get him out in front despite the poor location.

That brings us to their final matchup in the sixth. Carter had been overmatched in the first two and needed to make an adjustment to give himself a chance to find the barrel. What complicated matters is that he had to avoid cheating on the heater but still try to make an adjustment to his bat path to get on top of a hittable pitch. Those are two tough things to balance with one another, but that’s why hitting is so difficult.

Here are the first three pitches of the at-bat:

Pitch 1 (four-seamer, 0-0 count)

Pitch 2 (four-seamer, 1-0 count)

Pitch 3 (four-seamer, 1-1 count)

The 0–0 pitch was an easy take for Carter; if he’s going to chase a high heater, it’s going to have to be more competitive than that. On the next pitch, Carter had his foot up nice and early to give his body time to react. He recognized the pitch was in the same location that he whiffed through in his first at-bat, so he let it go by — a take you’re afforded when you get ahead in the count. On the third pitch, Javier threw it in a high zone that Carter might chase, and while Carter has elite plate discipline, he got caught cheating like he did earlier. (To be fair, Javier’s movement profile makes this pitch nearly untouchable for any hitter.)

Behind in the count, Carter had to change his mindset and do whatever it took to fight off different speeds and locations, hoping he got a mistake. Here are the next two pitches:

Pitch 4 (changeup, 1-2 count)

Pitch 5 (four-seamer, 2-2 count)

I grouped both these pitches together because they showed me that Javier was starting to lose his command. If he executed the changeup like he did in their second matchup, he probably would’ve gotten a whiff. As Eric Longenhagen noted in Carter’s prospect report, he has a downward cutting swing that makes him vulnerable to slow stuff at the knees. Javier knew Carter wanted the heater and had him set up to swing over something slow, but he couldn’t get it done. On the next offering, Javier missed even worse, tossing a cookie down the middle, but Carter couldn’t hold his posture, creating a bit too much torso bend and shifting his bat under the plane of this pitch. While that might work against most pitchers, it doesn’t against Javier due to his fastball’s unique movement profile.

Typically, when you miss a pitch like that, I’d say you got your best shot and that the at-bat is doomed. But Carter still had some fight in him:

Pitch 6 (four-seamer, 2-2 count)

Now that’s a solid adjustment. Carter stood more upright when he recognized the pitch at the top of the zone. That let him keep a flatter swing path, which you can see in the level followthrough relative to the previous swing. It was a better location matched with a better swing. Adjustments like this are you how battle when a pitcher executes their pitch.

The next pitch is another great example of Carter making an adjustment from an earlier swing:

Pitch 7 (slider, 2-2 count)

When Carter swung through the 1–2 slider in his previous at-bat, he was clearly cheating fastball and not at all prepared to fight off something slow. This time, he stayed within himself and adjusted his body just enough to get to the pitch despite being well in front of it. That’s the sign of a hitter who processes information well and changes accordingly.

The thing is, though, those last two better swings still only produced foul balls. A real win is when you find the barrel after struggling against a pitcher all night. Cue the eighth and final pitch:

Pitch 8 (four-seamer, 2-2 count)

That’s what I’m talking about! Carter was geared up for a pitch inside anywhere below letter height, and he finally got it. His eyes were locked on this location from the previous pitch, so it was much easier for him to go back here than it would have been to get to a high pitch. Either way, this is what happens when you’re stubborn with your willingness to make adjustments on an at-bat-to-at-bat basis and pitch-to-pitch basis.

This at-bat is a good example of how a hitter who has holes in their swing can fight to make adjustments until they get a pitch to hit. Through a combination of body and barrel adjustments, they can temporarily mitigate those holes. When it comes down to it, pitchers aren’t going to execute every time. If you’re aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you can be more conscious of the magnitude of adjustment that is needed. Carter is proving on a bright stage that he can hit — and more importantly, that he can quickly process information and apply those learnings to his body.