HOUSTON – Astros pitcher Charlie Morton was an All-Star for the first time in 2018.
He set career highs for wins with 15 and an ERA of 3.13, and his .833 winning percentage led all of baseball.
All of those accomplishments come from a 34-year-old pitcher in his 11th major league season.
Morton, who’s loved by his Astros teammates, is about as unassuming a professional athlete as you’d ever come across. His attitude about his own accomplishments is refreshing and his commitment to doing whatever he can to make the team better is commendable.
Shoulder soreness near the end of the season kept him to just 15 innings pitched in September, but in his final outing on the final day of the season, Morton was able to notch his 200th strikeout, reaching that milestone for the first time in his career. He finished with 201 strikeouts, joining Justin Verlander (290) and good friend Gerrit Cole (276) with 200 or more strikeouts this season.
His 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings, 1.162 WHIP, 129 ERA+ and 3.5 WAR were all new career bests for Morton, who is in the final year of the two-year contract he signed with the Astros prior to the 2017 season.
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