PHILADELPHIA — The Yankees can take solace. It wasn’t just them.

Cristian Javier does not discriminate. At some point in 2022, he basically stopped allowing hits. It wasn’t exclusive to Aaron Judge and Co.

Javier has a fastball that hardly awes in velocity. But it is illustrious because it is an illusion. He slings it from a low three-quarters arm slot with lots of backspin, giving the optical perception that it is rising simply because it is not descending by following basic laws of gravity. The Phillies actually had been strong against fastballs up in the zone this season. Not this version. You can’t hit what you can’t see.

His catcher, Christian Vazquez, called Javier’s fastball, “The best pitch in baseball.” What would the argument against that be after World Series Game 4? After the Phillies of Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber were as helpless as the Yankees of Judge and Anthony Rizzo. The Phillies, in fact, went from in control of this World Series and supported by a joyous home crowd to being on the wrong end of history and being booed. The mood at Citizens Bank Ballpark morphed from sea of red to see us dread in 24 hours.

Like he did on June 25 against the Yankees, Javier did the heavy lifting in a tag-team no-hitter. This, of course, however, is not June 25 and the 71st game of the regular season. This was just the second time a team was held without a hit in a World Series contest. The other was Don Larsen’s perfecto in Game 5 in 1956 for the Yankees against the Dodgers.

“I really don’t give a [bleep],” Schwarber said of being part of history. He sounded the Phillies theme — of one game, one loss, the 118th World Series is now a best-of-three with the teams tied two games apiece after the Astros’ 5-0 victory. Nick Castellanos mentioned being combined no-hit by the Mets in late April and recovering to get all the way to this moment.

But, of course, this was not just another day at the yard. It was so much — and so much less. Larsen threw a perfect game by himself. Roy Halladay threw the only other no-hitter in postseason history — for the Phillies in a 2010 Division Series against Dusty Baker’s Reds. Now, Baker, the Astros manager, saw Javier at 97 pitches after six innings. His career-high was 115 against the Yankees in the June no-hitter.

Baker said he thought about Javier’s “health and career” over history. It wasn’t 1956, not even 2010. Baker summed it all up this way: “It’s baseball in 2022.”

Indeed. That this was in Philly rather than Houston and that this was not a solo achievement robbed something in ambience and meaning. But did not lower Javier’s brilliance. He walked Harper in the second and No. 9 hitter Brandon Marsh on four pitches in the third. That seemed to lock him in. He retired 11 in a row from there — five straight on strikeouts at one juncture. The closest the Phillies came to a hit was a Schwarber grounder just foul in the third inning. He struck out instead. The Phillies managed just one ball to the outfield against Javier.

Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly finished and the question immediately became how much could Javier give on short rest in Game 7, if that were necessary. Baker sheepishly admitted his mind already had navigated there and thought two or three frames. How could you not use the hardest-to-hit pitcher going if everything is at stake, potentially completing an underdog rise.

After all, Javier signed later than most Dominican youths with baseball promise, just after going from an outfielder to a pitcher and just before his 18th birthday and only for $10,000. He has graduated from afterthought to ace. The 25-year-old righty threw 148 ²/₃ innings this year and his .170 batting average against was the best for anyone who threw at least 125 innings.

The Yankees faced him three times in 2022, including the ALCS, and managed three hits and one run in 17 ¹/₃ innings. Since Sept. 14, he has started six times and pitched at least five shutout innings with two or fewer hits in each — opposing hitters in 38 innings are 8-for-117 against him (.068).

Javier was given the assignment to pitch the Astros back into this series and counter a wave elevated by a crowd of 45,693 Wednesday that included Bruce Springsteen. Javier was clearly The Boss. He did this throwing his four-seam fastball on 70 of 97 pitches. He averaged 93.8 mph. The average of a postseason fastball to begin Game 4 was 95.3. But Schwarber mentioned “his extension and ride.” Harper his “spin rate.” With Javier, it is not speed as much as deception. Now you see it, now you don’t. He is an illusionist.

And on Wednesday night, he was most definitely magic.