Charlie Morton Scheduled To Have Tommy John

Well today the Pirates found out that their sinker ball thrower, Charlie Morton  is going to have to have season ending Tommy John surgery in the next few days. The right hander had appeared in nine games in 2012 posting a 4.65 ERA and a 2-6 record before heading to the 15 day DL with right elbow inflammation.

Although his stats do not look good this could be a pretty big hit to the Pirates because although their pitching had been good it still has problems. One of them I mentioned in a post earlier today which you can read here talking about Brad Lincoln and his struggles as a starter. The other problem is about Kevin Correia who at this point I am all to feed up with. Even Erik Bedard has showed struggles at times this year with his control and he is always a injury threat as well.

At this point Morton's return should be scheduled around July of next year. I think with this injury the Pirates are just one more lost starting pitcher away from having big pitching issues. All the Pirates should be looking forward to should be getting Jeff Karstens back on the mound to remove Brad Lincoln from this rotation. I think that once Karstens returns this club will get back on the right track having four quality pitchers out of the five that they will send out there. If Karstens can come back be healthy and perform like he did last year this team can continue their successes, if not the loss of Morton could come back to haunt the Pirates later in the year.