Houston Astros: Charlie Morton was removed early from his start against the Angels

The Houston Astros are one of the few teams that can afford an injury to a starting pitcher due to the strength of their rotation overall.  Nonetheless, losing an All-Star pitcher with playoff success would be a large loss for the defending champions.

According to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, Charlie Morton was removed from his start on Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels in the first inning due to right shoulder discomfort.  The Houston Astros were only planning on using Morton for three or four innings on Sunday, but a dip in velocity caused manager AJ Hinch to remove him from the game after only 24 pitches.

"“This is as long has he’s pitched into a season, and we’ve kind of nursed him at the end,” Hinch said. “If it was a playoff game, we could have kept pushing him out there. He was willing to go back out there. I didn’t love the velocity early, and I didn’t want to risk anything given the situation that we’re in. I think he’ll respond fine.”"

The Astros do not sound overly concerned about the health of Morton going forward as this early exit seemed to be more precautionary than anything else.  Houston even plans on using him during his next turn in the rotation against the Baltimore Orioles prior to the start of the postseason.

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However, as Morton was on the disabled list between August 29th and September 8th with similar right should discomfort, it will become worrisome if his velocity does not improve during that start against the Orioles.

Morton has compiled 1203.2 innings pitched throughout the course of his MLB career that began back in 2008 with the Atlanta Braves.  The 2018 All-Star only pitched 17.1 innings in 2016 with the Philadelphia Phillies before compiling 157.0 innings with the Astros and their minor league affiliates in 2017.  He also added another 23.1 innings in the playoffs last season.

This season, he has already thrown 164.0 innings, so it makes sense why the Astros do not want to push him much further with the postseason looming.  As it is deep into the MLB regular season, the additional rest could be all that Morton needs to get his velocity back prior to the postseason.

Morton made five appearances for the Astros in the playoffs last season in which he went 2-1 with a 4.24 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP.  His velocity is very important as it led him towards compiling 25 strikeouts in those 23.1 innings of work.  regular-seasont will be worth keeping an eye on his final regular season start to see if the velocity returns and remains steady.