This flame-throwing AL West starter has dominated in 2026 

By Brent Maguire | April 11, 2026

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"It's some of the best stuff you'll see in this league. You hate giving credit to opposing pitchers, but sometimes you have to. That was big-time stuff right there."

Those were the words from Braves manager Walt Weiss after the Angels’ José Soriano dominated Atlanta’s lineup on April 6, when the right-hander allowed one run in eight innings of work, while striking out 10 batters and issuing no walks. It was the latest of three brilliant starts that Soriano has thrown to begin his 2026 campaign.

Through three starts against the Astros, Cubs and Braves, Soriano has allowed just one run across 20 innings, along with 21 strikeouts and just seven hits allowed. Going back to at least 1900, Soriano is the sixth pitcher with 20-plus innings, 20 or more strikeouts, no more than one run allowed and fewer than 10 hits allowed in his first three outings, and the first since James Paxton in 2017.

Under the hood, Soriano has improved in multiple ways that suggest this breakout is legitimate, and that he could be a burgeoning frontline starter. With Soriano slated to make his fourth start against the Reds on Sunday, here’s how the Angels’ right-hander has taken his game to the next level.

His stuff is even better -- and he's altered his pitch mix

When watching Soriano in previous years, it was so easy to dream of the type of pitcher who could punch out 200-plus hitters in a season.

Perhaps, that’s why it was so confounding that Soriano had a 21.0 percent strikeout rate (37th percentile) last season and a 20.7 percent clip in 2024 (32nd percentile). From 2024-25, Soriano’s 20.9 percent strikeout rate ranked 49th among 78 pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched.

The stuff has finally started to translate into real swing-and-miss stuff this season. Soriano’s strikeout rate has jumped to 29.6 percent in 2026, while his 25.7 percent whiff rate from 2024-25 has skyrocketed to 33.8 percent this year. Whereas roughly a quarter of swings against him produced whiffs the previous two years, hitters are whiffing a third of the time this season.

A lot of that is due to his stuff -- which was already electric -- getting even better.

Along with the improved pitches has come an altered pitch mix. Really, the biggest difference is swapping out sinkers for significantly more four-seamers. Soriano’s sinker usage has dropped from 49.1 percent in 2025 to 29.9 percent this year, while his four-seamer usage has jumped from 8.6 percent to 22.3 percent.

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The command has taken a step forward

Soriano’s improvements extend beyond just the stuff -- his command has been better than ever in the Majors.

Soriano walked 9.6 percent of opposing hitters in his first year as a starter in 2024. That figure jumped to 10.8 percent last season, the second-highest number among all qualified starters. So far in 2026, Soriano is only walking around 8.5 percent, marking it the first time he’s had an above-average walk rate.

It’s not simply issuing fewer walks, though. Command is about throwing strikes and throwing pitches where you intend them to go. While it’s harder to quantify command than control, there are some measures that really encapsulate Soriano’s command improvements.

Location+ is one of those measures, which FanGraphs defines as a count- and pitch-type-adjusted judge of a pitcher’s ability to put pitches in the right place. Last season, Soriano’s 102 Location+ put him right around the league-average mark (100 is average). This year, Soriano’s Location+ sits at 113, tied for the eighth-best mark among qualified starters.

Soriano’s Stuff+, which looks only at the physical characteristics of a pitch, is at 105. The list of pitchers who combine both great stuff and command, at least so far this season, helps show why Soriano has been so effective.

Qualified pitchers with at least a 105 Stuff+ and Location+, 2026

José Soriano, Angels: 105 Stuff+, 113 Location+
Tarik Skubal, Tigers: 118 Stuff+, 111 Location+
Framber Valdez, Tigers: 106 Stuff+, 105 Location+
Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays: 106 Stuff+, 114 Location+
Cam Schlittler, Yankees: 113 Stuff+, 112 Location+
Bryan Woo, Mariners: 108 Stuff+, 107 Location+
Chris Sale, Braves: 113 Stuff+, 106 Location+
Logan Gilbert, Mariners: 105 Stuff+, 117 Location+
Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers: 106 Stuff+, 106 Location+
Will Warren, Yankees: 107 Stuff+, 106 Location+
Reid Detmers, Angels: 107 Stuff+, 108 Location+

Just for further visualization of Soriano’s impeccable command, here’s a heat map of his pitches in 2026, which show a pitcher precisely throwing his stuff where he wants it to go.

He's also generated weaker contact

We haven't even touched on the fact that Soriano is the game's premier ground-ball generator -- he leads all qualified pitchers with a 66.0 percent ground-ball rate since 2025.

But while ground balls are the best kind of batted ball a pitcher can produced (outside of pop-ups), not all grounders are created equal. Of course, a ground ball with a 115 mph exit velocity has a much stronger chance of ending up as a hit compared to an 85 mph version.

In 2024, Soriano's 89.9 mph average exit velocity ranked in the 21st percentile. That exit velo jumped to 91.4 mph last season, placing him in the 4th percentile of all pitchers. This year, Soriano's average exit velocity sits at 88.6 mph, putting him right in the middle in the 53rd percentile. Additionally, his hard-hit rate (batted balls of 95-plus mph) has dropped from 48.2 percent in 2025 (4thpercentile) to 38.6 percent this season (50th percentile).

That improvement in limiting quality contact has paid huge dividends on his ground balls, no small matter considering two out of every three batted balls against Soriano are on the ground.

2024 ground balls: 87.6 mph avg. EV // 37.8% hard-hit rate // .185 BA
2025 ground balls: 89.6 mph EV // 45.1% hard-hit rate // .248 BA
2026 ground balls: 86.9 mph EV // 32.1% hard-hit rate // .143 BA

Soriano has oddly allowed a higher barrel rate (an 11.4 percent rate would be a career high) but his batted ball results have been much better on the whole.

Put all of these improved elements together and the 27-year-old Soriano has quickly put himself on the national scene as one of the most exciting pitchers in 2026. Soriano has had quite a path to this point of success, too. Since being signed by the Angels out of the Dominican Republic in 2016, Soriano has undergone two Tommy John surgeries (in 2020 and 2021) and was taken in the Rule 5 Draft by the Pirates in 2020, but returned to the Angels the following year.

Now, he looks like a potential frontline starter and is a must-watch viewing in 2026.

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