No one associated with the Baltimore Orioles probably expected starting pitcher Charlie Morton to have such a rough beginning to his season. Yet Morton, whose ERA is 9.38 ERA in 31.2 innings of work, believes he can get better.

“You either quit. You give up. You give in. Or you say, ‘What’s coming out of my hand still can get outs.’ It’s just finding a way to better implement it,” Morton said, according to MLB.com. “It’s just getting momentum going. I think that right now, probably the hardest thing to do is just tying it all together, pitch to pitch, batter to batter, inning to inning.”

Morton has been part of the MLB scene for 18 seasons. He’s been a proven winner at many of his stops, including with the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Rays.

Morton needs to get better quickly

Still, Baltimore has locked Morton in for $15 million on a one-year deal. Any Orioles fan watching him pitch so far this season has to be disappointed with his results. Morton isn’t happy with them, either.

Advertisement

“Those thoughts kind of creep into your head — ‘What am I doing?’ Right? Because if I’m not helping the team, if I’m just kind of weighing the team down, I think maybe we’d talk about that,” Morton said. “It would be way easier if I was throwing 89-91 [mph] and my curve wasn’t spinning and my changeup wasn’t sinking and running and my cutter wasn’t consistent.

“It would be way easier just to go, ‘You know what, I don’t have it anymore. I just don’t have the physical talent to do it anymore.’ But the problem is I do.”

He’s bounced between a starting role and the bullpen recently. In his first five starts for the Orioles, Morton had a 10.89 ERA. Orioles manager Brandon Hyde made the decision to put him in the bullpen. How did that work out? Morton put together a 6.43 ERA in three relief appearances.

Advertisement

Morton was tagged for a spot start on Wednesday night against the Minnesota Twins due to Zach Eflin’s injury. He gave up three earned runs in four innings of work. The three-run damage came from the Twins’ Byron Buxton, who parked a Morton pitch in the second deck of Target Field in the third inning. The Twins won 5-2.

Orioles are 0-9 when Morton pitches

Right now, Baltimore is 13-22 for the season and 0-9 in games Morton has pitched. He’s definitely not happy with those numbers. What about games in which Morton doesn’t pitch? The O’s are 13-13.

“The results are so bad that there will be times just randomly in the day I’ll think about it,” Morton said. “I’ll think about how poorly I’ve pitched, and I’ll think about how bad the results are. And honestly, it feels like — it’s almost, like, shocking to me. I have the experience, I have knowledge. I still think that I still physically have the tools to be a halfway decent pitcher.”

Advertisement

The Orioles look to get out of Minnesota with a victory as the teams wrap up their mid-week series on Thursday. Hyde remains hopeful that Morton, even with these results, could have turned a corner with his Wednesday outing.

Time will tell, and is ticking, on Morton’s future.