The Launch Angle

100 Posts – 💯

Every year, my kids’ school celebrates the point when they reach 100 days of of school. It usually happens around late January, sometimes early February. I had never heard of such an occasion. They didn’t do that in my school when I was a kid.

I thought it must be a Texas thing, until I asked some other teams’ writers (back when we at the other site) if their kids’ schools had anything like that. Yes, they said. They found it as puzzling a milestone to celebrate as I did.

Digging a little deeper (by which I mean, I typed it into Google), I learned that it started in California in 1979, a math teacher’s idea to teach the number 100 to her kids. It grew from there, both geographically, and in the scope of what is being celebrated.

100 days of school, 100 days of education and accomplishment, 100 days to stop, look back and be proud that you’ve put in the time and work the past year. It’s an artificial milestone, but most milestones are. That shouldn’t lessen it.

I bring this up because this Game Preview is officially the 100th post published on The Launch Angle.

We’re still finding our way, still trying to increase our visibility and reach, still trying to figure out how exactly to run and maintain a website, but since our editor Cody Poage posted the first piece “Hello and Welcome” 4 months ago, not only are we still going strong, we’re growing stronger.

The success has been driven by our readers. Readers doesn’t even seem like the right word, because many of you have done just more than read. It is a community, and it’s taken the whole community to get us to this point, so thank you.

100 posts. Now let’s make like Altuve, and head for 3000.

What happened to Cristian Javier’s Invisiball?

Cristian Javier isn’t quite at 100 yet. Today will mark his 93rd career start.

He has been shelled in his first 2 starts this season, allowing 6 runs in 4.2 innings against the Angels, then another 6 runs in 3.2 innings against the A’s.

It doesn’t get any easier today. Coors Field is the hitters’ park of all hitters’ parks. Balls will travel further and pitches will break less.

With Hunter Brown out for an extended period of time (it will be several weeks before he’s even reevaluated for throwing from a sore right shoulder), the Astros can ill afford more bad outings from Javier.

What has changed in Javier? He broke into the majors ascendant, an AL Rookie of the Year finalist, riding his heralded invisiball to two pennants and a World Series championship.

Where has the Invisiball gone? The Invisiball worked because of Javier’s lower vertical approach angle (VAA), helped by a lower arm angle. People talk about how really fast fastballs seem to “rise”. Well, they don’t really rise, they just don’t drop as much as the batter expects, so where the ball ends up is higher than where they think it ought to be. So in the batter’s perception, the ball “rose.”

Javier’s fastball gave batters a similar effect. Even though his fastball wasn’t traditional gas, averaging around 93 mph, because of his VAA, the pitch would have less vertical movement. So just like 100 mph fastballs, they wouldn’t “drop” as much, and you get the “Invisiball”, a 93 mph four seamer that deceives the way a 100 mph one would.

Since Cristian Javier has come back from Tommy John surgery in 2025, that special quality to his fastball has diminished.

At its best in the World Series championship year of 2022, when he started 2 combined no-hitters, Javier has had more drop in fastball since then, particularly in the last 2 years. So far in 2026, it’s had more drop to it than at any point in his career, even when he was a rookie.

This was Javier’s weapon, and it’s dulled.

What you end up with is significantly less swing and miss on his 4 seamer:

2025 and 2026 have Javier’s lowest swing and miss rates on his four seamer since his rookie year.

The good news is the velocity hasn’t changed much, and the spin rates are comparable to pre-injury (although it’s down a little in 2026 through 2 games), so there’s still hope he can rediscover his magic.

Ideally, a lot sooner than when he hits 100 starts.

Astros @ Rockies Game Information and Gamethread Details

Opposite Cristian Javier of the Astros, right-hander Michael Lorenzen takes the mound for the Rockies, who is off to a similarly poor start, most recently coming off a 3 inning start against the Phillies, where he allowed 12 hits, 2 home runs, 2 walks and 9 earned runs while striking out just two batters.

The game will be broadcast at 2:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.

This post will be updated with starting lineups as they become available, but I expect to see Joey Loperfido back in the lineup, and for Jose Altuve to get his first rest day of the season, coming off an 0 for 4 with 3 K game. With Isaac Paredes back, Altuve can sit and get two days off in a row with the off day tomorrow and recharge for the next homestand.

Update: I was wrong about Altuve. He’s in the lineup. Carlos Correa is not for the second game in a row, which raises some eyebrows.

We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been fantastic on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.

Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .

Here is a sample from last night’s discourse:

If you’ve participated in gamethreads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)

Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link.