Although Charlie Morton got his 11th loss against the Nationals on Sunday, for once it was not his fault. The team committed three errors and six of the eight runs that the Nats scored were un-earned. Morton’s line was a lot worse than how he performed. Through 3.2 innings, six runs and eight hits were charged to Charlie. He is now 1-11 with a 9.66 ERA.
Now I’m not saying he had a ”great outing” but there is definitly some improvement from him. Morton threw mostly fastballs (57 of 76).
“Charlie looked better, a little more aggressive,” John Russell said. “He’s still not where we’d like to get him, but I think it was a step in the right direction. As the game went along, you saw his velocity start to creep up, too, and that’s encouraging.”
“Charlie never gave in,” Chris Snyder said. “The runs he gave up, the hits, were ground balls. He was aggressive, he had good composure, and I think the best thing he can do with a game like this is put the results aside and take away the fact that he pitched aggressively and gave himself a lot of opportunities to have better results.”
“I know I’d like to see better results, but I think I did a better job of pitching,” Morton said. “My tempo was better, the location better … it was different than last time.”
Most of the runs and hits came off of bloop singles or errors the Pirates committed behind him. It was an unlucky start for Morton.
General Manager Neil Huntington said he will remain in the Pirates rotation.
“Charlie has good enough stuff that he should be a major-league player,” Huntington said. “We do want to win games in September, but at the same time, you have to find out about players. With Ross Ohlendorf and Jeff Karstens hurt, there’s opportunity here to do that. As frustrating as it is with Charlie at times, we’ve just got to continue to work with him.”
Kristy Robinson
Recent Comments