NEW YORK -- If Astros right-hander Cristian Javier was going to get his season back on track, the Yankees presented the perfect opportunity. In his four previous career games against the Bronx Bombers, including the playoffs, he had allowed a total of four hits and one run in 20 1/3 innings. In short, he had been dominant.

Things didn’t go as well Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, where Javier had thrown 12 1/3 scoreless innings in his career. Giancarlo Stanton and Billy McKinney slugged back-to-back homers in the first inning and the Yankees pushed a go-ahead run across in the sixth inning to beat the Astros, 4-3, and drop them 1 1/2 games behind the Rangers in the American League West.

“I’m glad we didn't have to go get him because of too many pitches,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “He settled down and gave us a chance to win. We had a tough night with runners in scoring position.”

The Astros went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, including a game-ending groundout by Jose Altuve in the ninth. Houston mustered only four singles after Kyle Tucker tied the game in the sixth with his 19th homer of the year.

Javier’s outing Thursday came two months to the day after his most recent win, when he held the Angels to one run in six innings on June 3 in Houston. In his nine starts since, he has posted a 6.91 ERA, 1.56 WHIP and has walked 22 batters and struck out 35 in 43 innings. His 7.3 strikeouts per nine innings in that stretch is well below the 11.7 he had last year in 148 2/3 innings.

Javier’s “invis-ball” fastball hasn’t been up to snuff lately and certainly not as effective as it was Friday against the Rays when he posted his first quality start since June 15. On Thursday, he threw 65 fastballs in his 102-pitch outing, including the home run pitches to Stanton and McKinney.

“Some good ones, some bad ones, I would say that,” catcher Martín Maldonado said when asked to evaluate the four-seamer. “But I would say the last time was really, really good and today was better than the Texas game [on July 3]. That being said, I think there was more good ones today than bad ones today.”

Walks continue to be an issue for Javier. He walked Aaron Judge in the first inning and gave up a Statcast-projected 430-foot blast to Stanton one out later. McKinney’s homer four pitches after that had Javier on the ropes, but he retired 12 of the next 16 batters he faced. He was pulled with two outs in the fifth when Baker didn’t want him facing Stanton a third time.

“It was one bad pitch, the homer to McKinney,” said Maldonado, who notched a three-hit game for the first time this year. “Other than that, he threw some really good sliders and good fastballs.”

Entering the season, many viewed Javier as a darkhorse AL Cy Young Award candidate after he went 11-9 with a 2.54 ERA in 30 games (25 starts) in 2022, which included seven innings of a combined no-hitter at Yankee Stadium in June. One of first-year general manager Dana Brown’s initial moves was signing Javier to a five-year, $64-million contract extension in Spring Training.

The Astros are hopeful Javier can recapture his 2022 form, or even pitch as well as he did for the first two months of the season. He was 7-1 with a 2.84 ERA through his first 12 starts and was a solid second option in Houston’s rotation behind ace Framber Valdez.

The return of José Urquidy -- he’s expected to start Sunday after missing three months -- and the addition of Justin Verlander via trade -- he starts Saturday -- have lengthened the Astros’ rotation, but it’s at its best with an effective Javier.

“He’s on the way,” Baker said. “Just his pitch count seems to get high the last four or five starts. We’ve got to go get him in the fifth or sixth, and hopefully he’ll get it together.”