Sport: Baseball
Born: November 12, 1983
Town: Flemington, New Jersey
Charles A. Morton was born November 12, 1983 in Flemington, NJ. Charlie’s father, Chip, was a basketball player for Penn State, so as Charlie grew to 6’5″, no one was surprised. What raised a few eyebrows was that baseball was clearly the boy’s sport. He had a live arm as far back as anyone could remember and, after his family moved to Redding, Connecticut, he trained with coach Joe Norko at an indoor facility in Milford. There Charlie learned how to throw a curve.
By the time Charlie joined the Joel Barlow High School varsity, he had command of a fastball that touched the 90s, a 12-to-6 curve and a developing sinker that would one day become a difference-maker for him. Between starts, he worked with his dad in family bullpen sessions. In 2002, Charlie was taken in the third round of the draft by the Atlanta Braves.
By 2008, Charlie had worked his way up to Triple-A Richmond. That season, he was the most dominant pitcher in the minors during the first half. The Braves promoted him in June and he made 15 starts for the team, going 4–8 with a 6.15 ERA. It was a lost season for the Braves, who dropped 90 games, so manager Bobby Cox figured it was a good time to see what Charlie had.
Apparently, the Pittsburgh Pirates liked what they saw more than the Braves did. Flush with outfield prospects, they traded Nate McClouth to Atlanta to obtain Charlie in 2009, and slotted him into their starting rotation in June. He went 5–9 with a 4.55 ERA.
A lot was expected of Charlie in 2010, but he had a catastrophic season. Suffering from shoulder fatigue, he went 2–12 and spent half the season either on the DL or in the minors. He pitched better in September, but his career was hanging by a thread when Spring Training began in 2011.
Charlie stepped up and made the Pirates’ starting rotation and his record stood at 5–2 at the end of May. The difference was his sinker. Major leaguers could hit his mid-90s fastball and his breaking stuff wasn’t always reliable. But when he had his sinker working, batters just pounded it into the ground. Through the course of the season he lost and regained his feel for the pitch, but in August he seemed to turn a corner, hurling 24 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings. He finished 11–11 with an ERA under 4.00 and was named the Pirates’ Breakout Player of the Year.
Charlie had surgery after the season to repair a slight labrum tear, but the healing process was slower than expected. When he finally returned to the mound in 2012, he damaged his elbow and had to undergo Tommy John surgery.
Charlie was back in uniform in June of 2013 and went 7–4 for Pittsburgh in 20 starts. In 2014, he was striking out batters at a career-best rate, but struggled at times with control. He had won just 6 of 26 starts when a leg injury ended his season in August. He led the NL in hit batters in both 2013 and 2014.
Charlie returned to the mound in 2015 and went 9–9 in 23 starts for the Pirates. He began the year a perfect 5–0 but was inconsistent thereafter. In his final appearance of the season, he was hammered by St. Louis in a game that could have positioned the Pirates to overtake the division-leading Cardinals in the final week. The Pirates made the playoffs but lost the Wild Card Game. After the season, Pittsburgh traded Charlie to the Phillies for a minor leaguer. He made the Opening Day roster in 2016 but tore a hamstring running out a grounder in April and was shelved for the remainder of the season.
A free agent following the 2016 season, Charlie signed a two-year $14 million deal with the Astros. He worked with pitching coach Brent Strom to alter his pitch-to-contact approach and instead try to miss bats with his fastball and slider. Charlie joined Houston’s starting rotation and struck out 12 A’s in seven innings in an impressive April outing. He spent all of June on the DL, but returned with a vengeance, racking up four wins in July. With the Astros comfortably ahead in therir division, Charlie began to prepare for his trip to the postseason in four years. He ended the campaign with personal highs of 14 wins, 163 strikeouts and a 1.19 WHIP. He was less effective in the playoffs, allowing two runs in four-plus innings against the Red Sox (in the Game Four clincher) and got knocked around by the Yankees in Game Three of the ALCS—including a three-run homer by Todd Frazier. Charlie bounced back in Game Seven of the series, however, holding New York scoreless through the first five innings on the way to a 4–0 victory and Houston’s first-ever pennant as an American League team.
“Game Sevens” turned out to be a Charlie Morton specialty. After pitching well against the Dodgers in Game Four of the 2016 World Series (a narrow loss), he returned to the mound in the sixth inning of Game Seven as a relief pitcher—for the first time in nine seasons. Manager A.J. Hinch was praying for an inning or two out of Charlie to preserve a 5–0 lead. After giving up a run early, he mowed down the Dodgers in the final three innings to earn the W, as the Astros won their first championship in their 56th season.
Charlie continued his success in the 2018 regular season, earning an All-Star nod, pitching more or less injury-free and finishing with a 15–3 mark and 201 strikeouts. He fanned 14 in a game against the Rangers to set a new career-high. The Astros won their division again and swept the Indians in the opening round of the playoffs. Charlie didn’t pitch in the series but made a start in the ALCS against the Red Sox. It did not go well. He didn’t last three innings, allowing three earned runs in a game the Astros needed to tie the series at 2–2. The Red Sox beat up the Houston bullpen the rest of the way and took Game Five to win the pennant.
His two-year deal with the Astros done, Charlie hit the free agent market with a glowing résumé. The Tampa Bay Rays signed him to a two-year $30 million deal over the winter and he rewarded them with 16 victories and a second straight trip to the All-Star Game. At season’s end he was third in the AL Cy Young voting. In the playoffs against the Oakland A’s, he got the ball in the Wild Card game and won for the third time in his career in a winner-take-all contest—the most in postseason history. He faced the Astros in the Division Series and won Game Three with the Rays down 0–2, but they ended up losing the series in five games.
In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Charlie only made seven starts and worked through a couple of injuries, but he was good to go come playoff time. He beat the Yankees once and the Astros twice, allowing a grand total of one earned run to help Tampa Bay win the pennant. His second victory over Houston, in Game Seven, was his fourth everything-on-the-line playoff victory. Unfortunately, his luck ran out against the Dodgers in the World Series. He gave up five runs in a Game Three duel with Walker Buehler. LA won the game 6–2 and took the series in six games. The Rays declined Charlie’s option for 2021, and he signed with his first big-league club, the Atlanta Braves.
Baseball experts assumed that Charlie, now 37, would begin the inevitable decline pitchers his age experience. The Braves gambled that he had plenty of gas in the tank and they were correct—he led the majors with 33 games started and went 14–6 in 2021 with a 3.43 ERA. Charlie played a huge role in Atlanta’s run to the World Series that fall, where he relished a shot at his old teammates, the Astros. In Game Two, however, Yuli Gurriel broke his leg with a second-inning line drive. The Braves went on to take the series, giving Charlie his second World Series ring.
Charlie was in good health in 2022 and although his ERA bumped up a run to 4.43, he still went 9–6 and fanned 200-plus batters for the second season in a row. Only three other Atlanta pitchers had done this before. Unfortunately for Charlie it was another short postseason. He started Game Four of the Division Series against the surprising Phillies and was knocked out of the box after just six outs.
In 2023, Charlie began using his breaking pitches more—often close to half the time. It helped him make 30 starts for the Braves for the third year in a row at age 39. He went 14–12 with a 3.64 ERA and 183 strikeouts in 163 1/3 innings. He usually delivered six or seven innings of quality ball before handing off to the Atlanta bullpen. His best month was August, when he went 4–1 and had 21 strikeouts in back-to-back starts against the ”hometown” Yankees and Mets.
The Braves ran roughshod over the division, winning 104 games to grab the top seed in the playoffs. Unfortunately, they ran into the red-hot Phillies in the NLDS and lost 3 games to 1. Charlie did not pitch in the series due to a sore index finger.
Charlie returned to health in 2024 but had a down year at the age of 40. He went 8-10 in 30 starts and was one of the few Braves who managed to stay off the DL. They faced the Padres in the Wild Card series and lost 2 games to 0. During the 2024 campaign, Charlie beat the Pirates for the first time, giving him a win against all 30 major league teams. He also notched his 2,000th career strikeout, becoming the 89th pitcher to reach the 2K-K plateau.