Dejan Kovacevic is reporting today that Charlie Morton has a torn ligament in his elbow and that it’ll likely result in Tommy John surgery and that the Pirates would comment further today. He was following up on a lead from 93.7’s Chris Mueller, who said that there would be a “Tommy John announcement” involving Morton today.
Morton was obviously not very good this year, but I suspect that the Pirates are going to miss him more than people realize. As good as the pitching staff has been in 2012, I’ve currently got pretty big questions about 40% of the rotation (Lincoln and Correia) and I’d much rather have a healthy Charlie Morton in there getting groundballs than Rudy Owens, who I’ve got some reservations about.
On the flip side, UCL injuries are always cumulative and never sudden, and so Morton’s home run problems and general struggles this year could be attributed to the underlying problems caused by this injury. Morton’s still relatively young and he could be back at full strength by next year’s All-Star break if he has Tommy John surgery now. Hopefully that’s the case, and that someone like Owens can step up and fill the void in the rotation.
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