Christian Morris- The Comeback Kid
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a highly regarded pitcher in high school then have a major injury impact not only your draft stock, but your chances at ever playing the game of baseball again? Charleston RiverDogs pitcher Christian Morris can tell you all about it, because that is exactly what happened to him.
Christian Morris was his junior year of high school in Williston, Florida when his pitching was stout and had all the attention from scouts and great colleges. As the right-hander continued to throw his arm continually became sore, thus he got it checked out. Turned out to be a baseball player's worst nightmare, a torn UCL in the elbow. That meant Tommy John surgery for the pitcher and that he would miss his senior season.
Morris talked about what it was like to have vested interests from scouts and schools and how the injury impacted him saying, "For me, it was tough. I had to have Tommy John surgery so that was a long road back and I didn't get to pitch my senior year. I was talking pretty heavily to Florida State with their pitching coach at the time. We had some pretty deep conversations and I thought that was where I was going to end up going. It just wasn't in the making and I got hurt and things didn't work out, and I lost a bunch of offers and a lot of schools lost interest with the background of Tommy John and the only big school that stuck with me was Indiana."
Despite having Tommy John and not being able to pitch Morris was still able to find success. "The University of Indiana called," Morris said. "It was really cool. The pitching coach from Indiana called me the night before I was supposed to have surgery and he called and said 'I was looking at [your profile] and I'm just wondering why you're not committed' and I told him 'I've got to be honest with you, I'm about to have surgery in a couple of hours' so he wished me the best of luck and said 'when you're done give me a call, because we still want to see you up here on a visit.' I was shocked because everybody else that called and asked that and I had told them the same thing said 'well best of luck, we'll be following you.' I didn't expect him to still express interest."
That message motivated Morris ironically as he lit up the opposing pitchers in his senior season leading all Florida high schoolers with 11 home runs while driving in a school record 49 runs while batting .395. Being content Morris stated, "For me going into my senior year, I just took it as I was blessed to be able to play my senior year with my group of friends. We were a really good team and I enjoyed playing first base and I was just happy to play because at the time I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to play and they cleared me to play first base and have limited throwing. I was just happy to play and it turned out I had a really good year."
Being able to come back from such a serious injury is certainly something to be celebrated. "It was humbling," said Morris. "When I got into college, I didn't pitch much in the fall. I was still rehabbing so I thought for sure I was going to redshirt my freshman year. My coach sat me down toward the end of the fall and told me 'show us something in the winter and make us have to make a tough decision.' So I took that to heart, and got my body in shape, and got my stuff together and I ended up not getting redshirted and appeared in some pretty good games. It was tough from not pitching for two years basically to facing high caliber Division 1 hitters. You learn quickly you couldn't make many mistakes."
Moving forward at Indiana, Morris found himself on a team that had a spark. The Hoosiers made it to the 2013 College World Series. Morris said, "It was magical. I grew up watching the College World Series; I grew up dreaming about being there, but I never actually put myself there. When I was there it was so surreal and it happened so fast I don't even think I remembered it being there I just remember the memories now. It's more special each and every day since everything happened so fast. It's just unbelievable, that team and what we got to do."
In Morris' sophomore season with the Hoosiers he posted a 6-3, 2.04 ERA, to earn first Team All-Big Ten honors and ranked third in the league in ERA with an even better mark in conference play at 1.34, 5th best B1G ERA in IU history. Morris reflected on the experience saying, "It was very special. I just thank God for the chance to go out there for the first time truly healthy and just go out there. The coaching staff, the pitching coach that I had, and the coaches that I had just helped me and we found something that worked and I just kept going with it. I just tried to keep getting better and I had no idea I was going to make First Team All-Big Ten and until it happened, I didn't even know anything about it. When it happened, it was just really cool because it wasn't even in my mind at all. I was just trying not to lose a spot in the weekend rotation. I just wanted to keep pitching and keep getting the ball, and it just happened that way."
His senior season saw a little bit of a drop in ERA, but the Hoosiers made it to the regionals. Morris faced eventual College World Series runner-ups in Vanderbilt and first-round draft pick, Dansby Swanson. "He was probably one of the toughest batters I've ever faced. I faced Kyle Schwarber and Sam Travis at inter squads, but when I pitched against him he was looking for one specific pitch and if he didn't get it, he wasn't going to swing, but if he got it he was going to hit it hard. That impressed me. It was not surprising to me that he went number one overall."
Coming off of his junior year at Indiana, Morris knew he had interest from several Major League teams. "I really wasn't sure about where I would go in the draft; I had heard a lot of different things and talked to a bunch of different scouts. I didn't really talk to the Yankees that much. The rounds kept coming and I was kind of thinking I was going back to school and then they called me when I was about to go to dinner with my parents. I was overwhelmed because I grew up a Yankees fan my whole life and I never dreamed of being drafted by the Yankees. I always thought it would be someone else so it was just a surreal moment."
Morris is now in the most storied franchise in baseball history with the Yankees. Naturally with getting drafted and moving on to professional ball there is a learning curve and adjustments have to be made. Morris was asked about those adjustments and he said, "Just the differences of being on a five day rotation as opposed to seven days and just baseball and nothing else. It was a lot of fun and just learning the ins and outs and being in a new environment and learning how to change the routine where it's just baseball now. It was a blast."
In 2015 Morris spent nine games with the Gulf Coast League Yankees posting a 0-3 record with an 8.00 ERA in 27.0 innings. He was also called up to High-A Tampa for one game in which he got 2.1 innings of work, giving up two runs on three hits. As Morris stated, "I definitely noticed a difference in the level of competition in the type of hitters you're facing. Where I started out in rookie ball, you could get away with a few pitches and make a mistake and it still didn't always hurt you. I made one mistake in Tampa, and a guy hit a monster home run. You just see that everybody in the lineup is solid and there are no easy outs."
After being called up from Extended Spring Training in May, Morris is now in the starting rotation for the Charleston RiverDogs. Through seven games (all starts), Morris holds a 3-1 record with a 2.62 ERA in 34.1 innings pitched.
-Writen by Audie Wise
Assistant Director of Media Relations and Broadcasting