When Charlie Morton takes the mound in the Bronx tonight, he will make his 366th career regular season start and his 14th against the Yankees. A key part of that accolade, the 40-year-old has made 17 career postseason starts, including three against the Yankees.
Those starts undoubtedly hold special meaning for the right-hander, who was born in New Jersey and raised in Connecticut and grew up watching games at the old Yankee Stadium with his family. He’s played for the Pirates, Astros, Rays and Braves against the Bombers, evolving his career from shaky youngster to All-Star to savvy veteran. Ahead of tonight’s game, let’s take a trip down memory lane to some of the key moments in Morton’s long Yankee history.
By the time Morton first faced the Yankees, he already had plenty of experience. He started 2014 at age 30, with a 30-49 record, a 4.70 ERA and a long (and growing) injury history. He was pitching for a talented Pirates team that featured 23-year-old Gerrit Cole and reigning MVP Andrew McCutchen when he took the mound at Yankee Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader on May 16.
After future friend Neil Walker hit a solo home run off Hiroki Kuroda in the top of the first, the Yankees didn’t give Morton a very warm welcome in the bottom of the first. Brett Gardner walked, then Derek Jeter, a few weeks shy of his 40th birthday, bunted. Morton singled Jacoby Ellsbury to load the bases, then Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann each scored three times. Gardner scored Kelly Johnson on a double in the next inning to give the Yankees a 4–1 lead. That was the only damage Morton did that day, throwing 114 pitches in seven innings and allowing just one runner after Gardner’s double.
Kuroda gave up two runs in the fifth inning, and the score was tied in the middle innings, but Yankees relief pitchers Matt Daly, Matt Thornton, Adam Warren, and David Robertson kept the score together and the Yankees narrowly escaped with a 4-3 victory. With the loss, Morton, who had a 3.45 ERA, fell to 0-6 for the season. He performed reasonably well the rest of the year, but a season-ending hip injury put an end to his 2015.
After a hamstring injury limited Morton to just four starts for the Phillies in 2016, he became a free agent at age 33 with negative career bWAR. As fate would have it, the Astros signed him to a two-year deal, acquiring the increased fastball velocity and superior spin rate he displayed in his limited time with the Phillies. Morton pitched like a new man, going 14-7 with a 3.62 ERA for the Astros, who won 101 games and won their first division title since 2001.
After Houston won the first two games against the Yankees in that year’s American League Championship Series, the series shifted to New York, where Morton had a chance to take the ball and give the Astros a commanding lead. But that plan began to unravel early, when two-out singles by Starlin Castro and Aaron Hicks in the top of the second inning and a three-run homer by fellow New Jerseyan Todd Frazier gave the Yankees an early 3-0 lead.
The onslaught continued in the fourth inning, when after leadoff hitter Greg Bird doubled, Morton again got two outs, walked Frazier and allowed a one-run RBI single to Chase Headley.
He then hit Brett Gardner with a pitch, loading the bases and ending the game for the day. After a wild pitch by relief pitcher Will Smith allowed Frazier to score, Aaron Judge hit a three-run homer to give the Yankees an eight-run lead (seven of which came from Morton) and give them some breathing room.
CC Sabathia pitched six scoreless innings and the Yankees won handily, 8-1.
Despite that collapse, Houston used Morton again in Game 7. This time things went differently, as Morton pitched five innings, allowing just two hits and no runs, and the Astros won, 4-0, and advanced to that year’s World Series. Morton also earned the win in Game 7 of that series, this time as a relief pitcher.
After his 2018 All-Star comeback, the Rays signed Morton to a two-year free agent contract. He faced the Yankees seven times in a division rival uniform, including a pivotal Game 3 of the 2020 American League Series. Morton outdid playoff great Tanaka, who gave up five runs in four innings. Morton, meanwhile, allowed just one earned run on a sacrifice fly by Judge and one earned run on a double by Aaron Hicks as the Rays eventually won, 8-4, and finished with a 5-2 lead.
Morton’s performance was decisive as the Rays won the series in five games and then went on to win the American League Championship Series and advance to the World Series for the second time in franchise history.
After that season, Morton signed with the Braves and won his second championship, again reinventing himself as a veteran. He also pitched six scoreless innings and struck out 10 in a 2-0 win over Randy Vazquez last season against the Yankees.
Morton has been tough throughout his Yankees career, going 5-3 with a 3.53 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 68.2 regular season innings against his childhood team. At 40 years old and in the final year of his contract with Atlanta, you can’t expect anything less tonight from a pitcher who has defied all odds to cement his reputation as one of the greats of his generation.
