ATLANTA — One is a 40-year-old pitcher who’s hinted this might be his final season, the other an outfielder who’s having the worst season of his 10-year career and was released by the Washington Nationals 2 1/2 weeks ago.
But Saturday, Charlie Morton and Eddie Rosario were just a couple of veterans doing big things to thrill the home crowd at Truist Park and help the Atlanta Braves win a game, much as they did a few years ago for the World Series champion Braves.
Morton pitched six innings of one-run ball and Rosario had a tying two-out, two-run homer in the seventh inning of a 3-2 walk-off win against the St. Louis Cardinals in the first game of a doubleheader, a win decided by Ozzie Albies’ sacrifice fly with one out in the 10th inning.
Rosario homered again in the nightcap when Marcell Ozuna had two of the Braves’ four bases-empty home runs against Sonny Gray, but the Cardinals scored five runs in the first two innings against Bryce Elder and won 9-5.
Austin Riley, Ozuna and Rosario all homered in the sixth inning to get the Braves within a run, but the Cardinals pulled away with three runs in the ninth against reliever Grant Holmes. The second game was nothing like the first, when Morton and the Cardinals’ Kyle Gibson waged a pitching duel through six innings.
“I thought it was a pretty cool baseball game,” said Morton, a father of four who sometimes sounds like a kid still marveling at the beauty of the game he plays for a living.
Charlie Morton allowed one run over six innings against the Cardinals. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)
So does Rosario, who’s seven years younger.
“I feel blessed,” said Rosario, who entered Saturday hitting just .180 with a .536 OPS in 74 games this season, but heard familiar chants of “Edd-ie, Edd-ie!” when he came to the plate in the seventh inning of the doubleheader opener. Those got louder as he circled the bases after homering on the second pitch from right-hander Ryan Fernandez, who had just entered.
Regardless of his modest production the past two years — he remained with Atlanta in 2022-23 before they declined a 2024 option — Rosario will always be remembered by Braves fans as a hero during the 2021 playoff drive and postseason, when he was MVP of the NLCS after pillaging Los Angeles Dodgers pitching.
The Braves brought him back on a minor-league deal after the Nationals released him this month, and Saturday was his first home game since being added to the major-league roster.
“That’s big, to come back home here and do that,” Snitker said of Rosario’s two-homer day. “You just never know what might happen when a guy faces that. They kind of see their mortality a little bit and understand that this is another chance. A guy gets let go or whatever and a sense of urgency comes a little bit, and you may get the best version of him.”
He’s already had a few memorable hits in nine games in his return to the Braves, beginning with a two-out, two-strike single in the ninth inning of his first game on July 8 at Arizona. He hit a fastball well above the strike zone and set up Sean Murphy’s tying two-run homer in an 11-inning comeback win.
Braves fans don’t forget their favorites, and they let Rosario know when he stepped to the plate in the seventh inning of Saturday’s opener, chanting his name like few sub-.200 hitters are ever serenaded — with adulation and faith he could produce another big hit, like he did many times after being traded to the Braves in July 2021.
SUPER ROSARIO IS BACK 🍄
Eddie Rosario homers in his return to Atlanta. pic.twitter.com/PrGIdkNfsV
— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) July 20, 2024
“I want to say thank you to Braves Country,” said Rosario, who feels much better than a few weeks ago when he was a man without a team, albeit briefly. “I love it. I love it all the time when they say my name. It feels great.”
Braves who were around in 2021 are never surprised to see Rosario come through in a big spot.
“I’ve said, he’s got no pulse, that’s for sure,” Snitker said of Rosario’s penchant for staying calm, be it in a postseason game in hostile territory, or with his team down to its last strike in the ninth inning, or trailing 2-0 Saturday and showing little sign of life offensively before his big swing. “Situations are not going to bother him. He’s an aggressive guy.”
Rosario was still batting just .182 with a .582 OPS before Saturday’s nightcap, but it didn’t feel that way to teammates. Until center fielder Michael Harris II returns from the injured list — he’s been out five weeks with a grade 2 hamstring strain — and Jarred Kelenic moves back from center to left field, or the Braves trade for a corner outfielder, Rosario will play plenty.
“We’ve seen what he’s done in the past with us and know what he’s capable of,” Riley said. “To get him going on a hot streak would be huge.”
Like Rosario, Morton has talked often of the Braves’ clubhouse and team chemistry since signing as a free agent before the 2021 season. It’s what’s kept him coming back on one-year deals instead of retiring to become a stay-at-home dad with his wife and their four young children.
As much as the Braves value Morton’s impact on teammates and the example he sets for young pitchers, they wouldn’t have brought back Morton on another $20 million contract if he didn’t have plenty left to contribute on the mound.
He faced three batters over the minimum through five innings Saturday, allowing three singles and a walk in that span and inducing two double-play grounders.
“I was throwing strikes with my breaking ball, locating the fastball pretty well for the most part,” Morton said. “Travy (catcher Travis d’Arnaud) did a really good job mixing and having a really good feel for where my stuff was and where it was playing. There were a lot of really good plays behind me. There were a lot of opportunities for our infielders, and a little bit of small ball, too, which was kind of cool to see.”
The Braves got sacrifice bunts by Kelenic in the eighth inning and Zack Short in the 10th, the latter advancing Adam Duvall from second to third to set up Albies’ game-winning sacrifice fly. It was the first time the Braves had two sac bunts in a game since August 2021 and matched their majors-low total from the previous 95 games.
The Cardinals took a 1-0 lead in the sixth after a Masyn Winn leadoff hit that right fielder Duvall misplayed into a triple. Alec Burleson followed with an RBI single before Morton retired the next three including two strikeouts.
The lead was 2-0 after Braves reliever Dylan Lee gave up a seventh-inning homer to Nolan Arenado, but an inning later, Rosario and the Braves made sure that Morton wasn’t saddled with a loss.
“He’s awesome,” Rosario said of Morton. “I watch him every day. He works hard. Awesome teammate, great person. I’ve got much respect for Morton.”
Morton’s 93.4 mph average fastball velocity is down 1.5 mph from the previous two seasons, which in turn was down from 95.5 in 2021, when he went 14-6 with a 3.34 ERA and 216 strikeouts in 185 2/3 innings for the Braves and posted career-bests in opponents’ average (.203) and OPS (.591).
He still throws plenty hard and spins the ball better than most pitchers, though his vaunted curveball doesn’t break as much — horizontally or vertically — as it did in his first two seasons with the Braves. The point is, the man can still pitch effectively, and on days like Saturday he’s far better than the average No. 4 starter.
“I think part of it is just a mentality,” Morton said of his reduced velocity. “Because I definitely feel it in my arm. I definitely feel like there have been there been some games where it’s like, I could tell my arm just wasn’t great. At the beginning of the year, I was probably (sitting) 94. I probably touched 97, like where I was (in the past). But I definitely could tell, if you don’t keep stepping on the pedal and trying to get to that, it goes away.
“And I think part of me has been not as focused on pure stuff as I was before. Honestly, I think that’s part of the problem. Like last year, I remember the first few starts of the season I was throwing plenty hard. But if you don’t do the right things and you don’t keep stepping on it, it goes away. So I think probably that’s a little bit of what’s happening. I started working on a little more east-to-west (movement), like getting cute a little bit with my (sinker) or trying to front-hip guys.”
Morton continued to analyze his pitching, pointing out that he had his best season in 2019 when his fastball velocity was 94.7 mph — down from 96.1 the previous season — and said ultimately it’s not about velocity, but locating his elevated fastballs and commanding his curveball. He did that Saturday.
He’s 40, but sounds like a guy still fully invested in this occupation, not looking toward the next chapter in his life.
Rosario is glad to be back where he feels comfortable, where fans and teammates make him feel at home. In that way, he sounds like Morton, who’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be anywhere else as long as he’s wearing a baseball uniform.
(Top photo of Eddie Rosario: Casey Sykes / Getty Images)
