SARASOTA—The Orioles knew that when they signed Charlie Morton, the 41-year-old right-hander would bring leadership and stability to their starting staff. They knew he was a two-time All-Star and pitched for two World Series-winning teams.
Morton is also the active leader in hit batsmen. Many pitchers in baseball history who often hit batters — Roger Clemens, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan — had a reputation for throwing fastballs in on hitters.
That’s not the case for Morton, who’s hit 186 batters in 17 seasons, tied with the late Tim Wakefield for seventh on the all-time list. Johnson is tied for sixth with 190.
Morton, who is generous with his time and knowledge, doesn’t fit the profile of those who intimidated hitters.
“Just the black-and-white nature of a stat like a hit-by-pitch doesn’t tell the story,” Morton said. “I throw a lot of curveballs to lefties and the location where the curveball works the best is the inner half in, and I just yank it. I hit a lot of guys in the feet. I hit a lot of guys in the ankles, but I’m not known as a headhunter because I’m not. I’m hitting guys with breaking balls.”
When Morton talked after his first live batting practice at Ed Smith Stadium, he was relieved no Oriole got hit.
“I was more focused on walking off the mound healthy and not having hit anybody,” Morton said.
Morton brought up June 7th, 2023, when with the Atlanta Braves, he hit the New York Mets’ Pete Alonso on the left wrist, and Alonso missed eight games, the only ones he’d miss all season.
“We were going over Pete, and I think at the time, we thought we saw a hole, inner half of the plate, four-seamer upper half and it’s like, ‘I’m trying to go middle up.’ First pitch, first heater I threw, I get a swing-and-miss. It’s like, ‘we’re going back in there,’ and I’m thinking as a pitcher: ‘That was an OK pitch to try to sneak one by him, but this has got to be a little bit better,’ and that’s when it gets dangerous for me.
‘You’ll hit guys in the hands and wrists and that’s really dangerous. You don’t want to jeopardize somebody’s season or even their career for one strike, for one out. That’s my attitude now. Guys back in the day, that mentality didn’t exist.”
Morton has led the National and American leagues in hit batsmen twice. Most have not been notable, but the pitch to Alonso was.
“I had a bad feeling about that,” Morton said. “I don’t know why. We’re talking a guy that season, he missed a couple of weeks. It threw him off. If you look at the season he had, even with that, we’re talking about a guy, I don’t remember exactly his stats, but I just remember thinking he was having a heck of a year.”
Alonso still hit 46 home runs and drove in 118 runs in 2023.
“Fans, they want to see Pete Alonso out there hitting. Even if you’re not a Mets fan, you want to see a guy chasing 40, 50, 60 home runs. You want to see Aaron Judge do that. You want to see Shohei Ohtani go and do that.”
Morton has changed as a pitcher and so has the game.
“Earlier in my career, especially with the Pirates, I was pitching in a lot to righties, especially,” he said. “I hit a lot of guys with my sinker in, but the majority of it was, I hit a guy in the thigh, or you hit in the knee, and you feel bad about it, but I think controlling the top half of the zone, the top half of the human body. That’s something you need to be aware of.”
Today’s pitchers throw harder and pitch for more teams.
“There’s more of a sense of camaraderie between opponents, empathy between opponents because we move a lot now, team to team,” Morton said.
Morton has seen the game change since he made his debut with Pittsburgh in 2008.
“There’s contact at second, there’s contact at home. Guys would throw at each other on purpose to send a message a lot more frequently. It was like ‘that’s my plate.’ That attitude was something that just existed,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s wrong or right, but the way the game has evolved … I would say the umpires have gotten better calling a true strike zone.”
Morton has grown to rely more on his curveball, but he’s watched others throw much harder.
“I know there were hard throwers a while ago, but on average, I think hitters are forced to pay attention more to what’s coming out of a guy’s hand and hitting the ball, putting the ball in play and hard contact,” Morton said. “I think in doing that, they’re leaving themselves open. The hands are coming early. There’s no protection. Very rarely nowadays do you see a guy get thrown at, in his shoulder area, in his head area. He’s able to get out of the way.
“There’s a level of trust between the hitter and the pitcher. I think some guys, I would say the majority of us, understand that the game has changed. There’s a level of professional trust between the hitter and the pitcher. ‘I’m not going to throw at you, at your neck, just for the sake of sending a message, that because I think you’re taking too much of the plate.’ I just don’t think that really exists that much anymore. It’s not that prevalent.”