This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

There’s not one player who holds the key to the Astros’ postseason success more than right-handed pitcher Cristian Javier, who was nearly unhittable in last year’s playoffs and entered the season as a dark horse Cy Young Award candidate in the American League.

Javier lived up to that potential in the first two months of the season by going 7-1 with a 2.84 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in his first 12 starts, which covered 69 2/3 innings. The rest of the summer was a grind, but a strong closing kick, including six scoreless innings in Sunday’s regular-season finale in Arizona, have the Astros hoping Javier has put it together at the right time.

“I’ve said to numerous people the last couple of months he’s been close,” Astros pitching coach Josh Miller said. “He’s shown glimpses of the 2022 version of himself. It just hasn’t been put together. He certainly finished the season strong. He seems to have gotten his fastball shape back in line which is what we’ve been searching for all year, and that bodes well going into a postseason.”

Javier posted a 3.05 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in his final four starts of the regular season, including an 11-strikeout game on Sept. 20 against the Orioles that tied his season high. He’s likely to slot into the playoff rotation behind Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, meaning the Astros’ hopes in any playoff series could be titled significantly when he has the ball.

Javier hasn’t been getting the same number of swings and misses on his fastball as he typically gets when he’s right. His fastball, dubbed the “Invisi-ball” because it’s hard for hitters to track although it only averages about 93 mph, has been more hittable. Overall, his whiff rate and K rate are down and walk rate is up from last year.

“When he’s getting swings and misses in the zone or above the zone, you know he’s got the good one going that day, for sure,” Miller said.

The alarm bells went off for Javier in June, when he walked five batters and gave up four runs in 2 1/3 innings in a win over the Mets. He gave up 14 runs and 17 hits in 8 1/3 innings in his next two starts -- both wins because the Astros were scoring a ton of runs -- and that was enough to send Miller and the staff to the drawing board.

“It’s like, OK, he’s not really getting the strikeout totals we’d expect with him, not really getting the swings and misses we’d expect with him,” Miller said. “The velocity is OK, in a decent range. You look at year over year changes, there’s some subtle things he’s doing differently with his delivery that mattered and just trying to line up his lower-half mechanics a little better. He’s been able to do that for the last couple of months but not put together the total. We’re expecting him to put the total package here going forward.”

There was another issue to consider, too: workload.

Javier threw a career-high 161 1/3 innings last year, including the playoffs, and then got ramped up early in the spring to represent the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. The Astros signed him to five-year, $64 million contract extension at the start of spring camp that will take him through the 2027 season. Houston had locked up a potential future ace.

But now he wasn’t pitching like one. He had a 7.27 ERA and a 1.63 WHIP in 13 starts from June 21-Sept. 9. Opponents had an OPS of .881 and he’d allowed 14 homers in that span.

“You’re scratching your head,” Miller said. “He’s saying subjectively he feels good, he feels strong, he feels like he’s on time -- all these things. It’s a little frustrating for both him and us. You start thinking of what’s going on and then you go back to the workload from last year, pitching into November last year, the early crank up with the WBC this year, the contract.

“You start wondering, what could be going on differently, maybe not even physically but mentally that’s causing the differences? Nothing really stuck out, so we put our nose to the grindstone and kept working and hopefully we found something, and it clicks and finishing strong was big for him.”

Miller said Javier was frustrated with the results, though you could never tell. Nicknamed “El Reptil” for his cool demeanor, Javier might not have had the sense of urgency, at least outwardly, that matched his inner struggles. But Miller said he put in the work to improve.

“It’s a good quality to have in that you’re not going to ride too high when it’s going well and you’re not going to ride too low and not be consolable when it’s going bad and you’re going to be able to work in between outings regardless,” he said.

How huge was Javier in last year’s playoffs? He appeared in three games (two starts) and was 2-0 with a 0.71 ERA while striking out 16 batters and allowing two hits and one run in 12 2/3 innings. He threw six no-hit innings in a combined no-hitter in Game 4 of the World Series in Philadelphia -- the first no-hitter in the Fall Classic since Don Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees in 1956.

“He’s an excellent weapon against any lineup in the big leagues if he’s right,” Miller said. “Having him be that solid, stable piece where we could expect him to dominate for five innings, a couple times through the lineup is big and allows us to deploy the bullpen and other pieces we have in the pitching staff in a better way. I think it would be huge if he could step up and be this version. We also have other options that are good and have pitched in big games in the past, too.”