On Wednesday, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Charlie Morton received a roaring ovation from Pirate fans as he walked off the pitcher’s mound and toward the third base dugout against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The right-hander just gave one of the Pirates’ best pitching performances this season – seven and a third innings of shutout baseball.
And Morton’s season so far has deserved the applause of Pirate fans.
The 31-year-old began the season on the disabled list while he continued to recover from September hip surgery before returning to the rotation on May 25. Since then, Morton has won all four of his starts and holds a 2.05 ERA.
But will his success last?
It is difficult to judge what kind of season a pitcher will have by judging only four starts, especially with a pitcher like Morton that has had his share of ups and downs in the past. But it is still worth seeing how his numbers this year stack up to his career averages.
Over the last few seasons, Morton has seen his walk totals go down while his ground ball rates go up. This year has been no different.
This season he is averaging 2.39 walks per nine innings, which is slightly better than the league average. His career BB/9 average is 3.43, but he averaged under three walks per nine innings in 2012 and 2013. He was on a similar pace last year until his walk total ballooned in August, though his hip injury likely had an effect on that number.
He also has not hit a batter this year, which is encouraging because the only time he went consecutive starts without plunking a batter last season was when the two starts were over a month apart.
Morton’s early success is also helped by his ground out to air out ratio. Morton has 3.85 groundouts for every one air out this year, which would lead the majors by a wide margin if he had enough innings to qualify for the lead. That number, however, is probably not going to be sustainable. But with Morton being a heavy sinkerball pitcher it’s certainly possible that he would finish around the 2.63 GO/AO ratio he had in 2013, which would still be one of the league’s best.
That high of a GO/AO ratio has helped lead to a very low batting average on balls in play against him. His .241 BABIP is well below his career BABIP of .311, which is also typically around the league average for pitchers, and it is more than likely that Morton’s BABIP will level out towards that number.
An increase in strikeouts could help balance things out if Morton’s BABIP rises, though. Morton only has 12 strikeouts on the year – half of them came in his start on Wednesday against the Brewers – resulting in an average of 4.10 strikeouts per nine innings. That is way below his career K/9 of 6.14, and well below the 6.95 K/9 he put up the last two years, so it should be expected that his strikeout numbers this year will improve.
Considering his inconsistent past, it would be wise for Pirate fans to still tread with caution before getting their hopes up too much about Morton. But overall it has been so far, so good for him this year. Yes, there are some ifs involved if he is to keep churning out quality starts for the Pirates – if he can get his strikeout rate up to his career average, if he can keep his walk rate where it currently is, if he can continue to induce groundballs the way he has the last couple of years – but they are not unreasonable expectations for Morton.
Morton is not likely to have starts like the one he had Wednesday on the regular. But considering the strength of the top of Pirates’ pitching this year, the club does not need him to. Gerrit Cole is pitching like a Cy Young candidate, AJ Burnett is in line to make his first All-Star game appearance, Francisco Liriano outside of one horrendous start has been pitching like a top of the rotation pitcher and the back-end of the bullpen is one of baseball’s best. At the very least, Morton just needs to continue to eat up innings and give the Pirates a chance to win each time he starts.
And so far this year he is giving the Pirates optimism that he can do that.
