Braves pitcher might have just brought back a familiar weapon

An Atlanta Braves pitcher’s recent performance has us thinking he may have brought back a familiar part of his pitching arsenal.

Something has been missing from Charlie Morton’s pitching arsenal to start his season with the Atlanta Braves: His cutter.

Morton’s cutter has never been a massive part of his rotation, and some, including players, have called it his, “worst breaking ball.” It’s certainly not as deadly as his curveball is, but it still works, especially against righties when it breaks away.

But in previous years, he’s thrown it between eight and nine percent of the time. This year, he threw it just seven times through the first five games of the season.

There was good reason for that. On those seven pitches, 4 were balls, one was a called strike, and one got taken for a triple. It wasn’t performing great.

But that changed dramatically on Monday night, when he threw it five times. Two were called balls, one was hit foul, and two were called strikes.

Dare we say the cutter is back for Charlie Morton?

Charlie Morton is arriving, his cutter tells us all we need to know

It’s not a headline story that Morton’s oft-used pitch is being used again. If anything, that’s a small note to the overall idea: Charlie Morton seems ready and finally established after he started with 3 and 2 earned runs in his first two games of the year. He’s earned just 1 run in the last two games he started.

Did we forget to mention he had nine strikeouts on Tuesday night?

It’s not a coincidence that Morton restores one of his pitches back to his normal level of use on the night he puts up his best performance of the season. Yes, the performance from his teammate Spencer Strider the night before very well could have lit some sort of fire under all the pitchers, but Morton is simply arriving and getting in his groove, clearly.

Still, there’s some to be done to prove he’s completely comfortable with it again. He has yet to throw it to a lefty. It’s certainly a pitch better served to righties, but in previous years he delivered it at a fairly balanced rate.

It’ll be notable to see if Morton uses this pitch more frequently again in his next outing.