Morton draws the start as Braves look to avoid another Gore-y outcome against Nats

On the season, Atlanta starter Charlie Morton has a perfectly cromulent 95 ERA-, 101 FIP-, and 97 xFIP-. He has 0.7 fWAR in 62 ²⁄₃ innings, which is basically a dead-average pace for a starting pitcher. He’s been about as generic a mid-rotation arm as you could design. Even his BABIP-against is essentially league average, at .301.

And yet, Morton’s line is just the sum of weird stuff happening to him, over and over, especially lately. Over his last four starts, he hasn’t pitched well (135/116/106), but his lines have been particularly whiplash-inducing. In two starts against the Cubs in May, he ran a BABIP-against above .360 in both outings, with a 4/3 K/BB ratio (bad) in one game but an 8/4 K/BB ratio (much better) in the other. The Braves lost both. Then came his crazy start against the Nationals in Atlanta, where they managed an insane .611 BABIP-against and saddled Morton with eight runs, despite a 7/2 K/BB ratio. The Braves lost that too. And then, most recently, Morton had an ugly 6/5 K/BB ratio — two walks were probably rain-aided, but he also benefited from a badly blown call on a 3-1 pitch that later became a strikeout — but managed to yield a sparkly zero runs to the Athletics thanks to an .091 BABIP-against. In short, I don’t really know what to expect from Morton today, but it’s probably gonna be weird in one way or another.

On the flip side, the Braves will get another crack at MacKenzie Gore, who’s been way better than average so far, but has also been highly inconsistent in the process. Gore’s season line is 88/81/86, which is really good — it’s a top-50 line fWAR-wise and in the top 30 in both FIP- and xFIP-, just limited by Gore’s lack of length — but again, weird stuff abounds.