World Series 2021 - Braves' Charlie Morton threw 16 pitches on a broken leg -- and then apologized it wasn't more - ESPN

HOUSTON -- Inside the training room of the visiting clubhouse at Minute Maid Park during Game 1 of the World Series, friends kept dropping by to apologize to Atlanta Braves pitcher Charlie Morton for his misfortune.

The guy who wore a 102-mph shot off his right fibula in the second inning was sorry.

"And if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about Charlie Morton," Atlanta star Freddie Freeman said, "I'm not sure what does.".

Still, what Morton did Tuesday night went beyond pain tolerance.

Atlanta signed Morton to a one-year, $15 million deal last November because his wizened arm could still whip 97 mph fastballs and feather 80 mph curveballs, sure.

Braves starter Charlie Morton takes a comebacker to his right leg in the second inning and is forced from the game an inning later.

He threw six more to Martin Maldonado, occasionally grimacing but perhaps no more than in an average Charlie Morton start, during which his faces are regularly amusing.

Even though Atlanta thinks so much of Morton it already signed him to a $20 million extension for 2022, nobody can predict what's to come.

So back he came for the third inning, when he threw six pitches and caught Altuve staring at a curveball for the second time, only after this one he pirouetted away, a grimace creasing his face, and avoided landing on a ginger leg that 30 minutes, 39 seconds earlier had been ambushed by Gurriel's batted ball.

With Morton out for the rest of the World Series (a second X-ray, after the third inning, revealed the fibula fracture), the prospect of multiple bullpen games going forward makes the path even more difficult

There was no bloody sock to memorialize Game 1, nothing tangible beyond Morton becoming quite literally a Sorry Charlie