This is starting to get crazy. With tonight’s Charlie-Morton-lead shutout, the Pirates have now thrown three straight shutouts, five in six games, and six in their last nine. The last time Francisco Cervelli has seen an opponent cross home plate in front of him was last Tuesday, which also happens to be the last time the Pirates lost a baseball game. The Pirates are now on a six-game winning streak and have won 19 of their last 24 games. The Pirates were 18-22 when this streak started; they’re now 37-27 and have the second best winning percentage in the NL and the third best in all of baseball. And the Cardinalsriminals won again tonight, so the Pirates are still six games out of first place.
Big picture focus aside, let’s talk about Charlie Morton. Morton threw seven shutout innings tonight, striking out three, walking one, and scattering four hits. All four hits were singles. The walk and one of the hits came in the first inning and two of the other hits came in the seventh. After Adam Eaton’s single in the third, Morton set down 11 in a row before Melky Cabrera’s seventh inning single. Of the 21 outs recorded by Morton, 12 came via the groundout.
The end result is that it’s June 16th and Morton is sitting on a 5-0 record with a 1.62 ERA in five starts. He’s about a year removed from the sports hernia that torpedoed his 2014 season, and just a few months ago he looked hopelessly lost in spring training. He’s now in the middle of one of the best stretches of his career, and he’s been a big part of this Pirate resurgence by lending the rotation depth that it did not have in April or early May. Morton’s been a Pirate for forever with more make-overs and comebacks and retoolings than most pitching staffs have combined in their careers. Honestly, if you would’ve told me in March that this latest resurgence was coming, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you. I’m sure the ERA will come back to earth some soon since he’s not missing many bats, but let’s take a second to enjoy and appreciate this stretch for what it is, and how incredibly timely it’s been for a Pirate team that was not in good shape less than a month ago.
On the other side of things, the lefty-lineup paid some dividends for Clint Hurdle tonight with Sean Rodriguez chipping in two hits and a home run. Obviously the Pirates didn’t quite get to Quintana the way they got to Carlos Rodon last night, but they did leave quite a few runners on base and in scoring position tonight (two of their runs came via the solo homer, Rodriguez and Cervelli). After being completely silent last week, the bats seem like they’re coming back around, even if it didn’t show up in the run column tonight.
Throwback lead image (seriously, it must’ve been the 2011 season that I used it every day) courtesy of @bwzimmerman and requested by @atomk13, possibly the two longest tenured WHYGAVS readers on the entire internets.
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