Then there were six
» Charlie Morton the latest Astro added to All-Star team.
With three small children and a fourth on the way, early mornings are the norm for
Charlie Morton, an introspective, unfazed fellow who “enjoys his breakfast,” according to A.J. Hinch.
“And I got to interrupt it,” the Astros manager said Friday afternoon.
Hinch phoned his 34-year-old starting pitcher earlier that day to welcome him onto the American League All-Star team, another first for the journeyman righthander who resurrected his career with the Astros and secured the final out of the franchise’s first World Series championship last season.
“It was kind of surreal,” said Morton, who replaces New York Yankees closer Aroldis
Chapman. “I’ve been playing a long time and to be where I am later on, I’m 34 years old, and having never been to a minor league All-Star Game, never been to a big league All-Star Game, so it’s pretty awesome.”
Morton and his wife, Cindy, plan to move their family to Washington, D.C., when his playing career ends. The family was set to be in the area during the All-Star break, Morton said, to look for houses. Their agenda has changed. Morton’s 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings are third among American League pitchers, trailing teammate Gerrit Cole and Boston’s Chris Sale. His 11 wins are the most of any member of the Astros’ five-man rotation and his 2.96 ERA ranks ninth in the AL.
A few days ago, Morton pored over his numbers and compared them to each of his other 10 first halves, all of which concluded without an All-Star nod.
“This is probably the best I’ve pitched,” he thought. “This could have been my one shot.”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t make the team or I felt like I should have been there or anything like that, it was just more of ‘the clock’s ticking,’ ” Morton said. “For (Hinch) to call me and give me that news, it’s exciting for me. Because now it’s something, for myself and my career, that I can look back and say I was an All-Star.”
Along with Morton, Tampa Bay lefthander Blake Snell was added to the American League roster in place of Cleveland’s Corey Kluber. Fitting, too, that another deserving pitcher received the news on the same day as Morton, never one to focus on himself.
“He was in shock when I called him and genuinely was concerned about who the other snubs were, what was happening with Collin McHugh or the mechanics of how he became an All-Star and if that cost somebody a spot,” Hinch said. “This guy is tremendous at pitching and a tremendous human.”
His addition gives the Astros six All-Stars, equaling their franchise record set last season. Cole, Justin Verlander, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and George Springer will join Morton in Washington, D.C., for the Midsummer Classic.