ANAHEIM -- It is too early to wonder if José Soriano is becoming an ace?
He’s certainly pitching like one to start the season, as he turned in his third straight dominant performance on Monday, striking out 10 and walking none while allowing just one run over eight innings in a 6-2 win in the series opener on Monday night at Angel Stadium. He became the first pitcher in the Majors to record three wins this season and has a minuscule 0.45 ERA with 21 strikeouts and six walks in 20 innings this season.
“That was pretty insane,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “It's a great lineup over there. They’re not punching out this year, and for Sori to come in and do that, it just speaks about the stuff, but also the execution.”
Soriano had already made club history through his first two starts, becoming just the second pitcher in Angels history to throw at least six scoreless innings with at least four strikeouts in each of his first two games of a season, joining Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan (1978). And now he’s the fourth pitcher in franchise history with six-plus innings, one or fewer runs allowed and at least four strikeouts in each of his first three starts of a season, joining Chuck Finley (1998), Jered Weaver (2011) and Shohei Ohtani (2023). He’s also just the second Angels starter to give up one run or fewer in his first 20 innings since Kirk McCaskill in 1989.
His performance even wowed Braves manager Walt Weiss, especially because his team came into the game with the lowest strikeout rate in the Majors at 17.7 percent, and Soriano carved them up.
"It's some of the best stuff you'll see in this league,” Weiss said. “You hate giving credit to opposing pitchers, but sometimes you have to. That was big-time stuff right there."
Soriano saw his shutout streak to open the season come to an early end against the Braves, as he gave up a solo homer to a red-hot Drake Baldwin on a 1-2 four-seam fastball at the top of the zone that registered 98.3 mph. Matt Olson followed with a single, but Soriano was essentially unhittable after that, getting Austin Riley to ground into a double play to start a streak of retiring 19 Braves in a row until giving up a leadoff single to Mike Yastrzemski in the eighth.
“When those things happen, you have to keep your focus,” Soriano said. “I tried not to think much of the [homer] and just kept pounding the zone and kept moving forward.”
Soriano was incredibly efficient despite racking up a season-high 10 strikeouts, needing just 97 pitches to record 24 outs. He recorded nine outs via grounders and four via the air, which is a bit higher than usual for the sinkerballer, but also attacked the strike zone with 71.1 percent of his pitches going for strikes. He registered 15 swings and misses, including five with his knuckle-curve, three with his splitter, one with his sinker and one with his four-seamer.
Soriano credited catcher Logan O’Hoppe for calling the right pitches and believes they are dialed in together and closer than they’ve ever been.
“We really have more communication,” Soriano said. “We are trying to be on the same page every time we go out there on the field. So I think that's part of it.”
He also outdueled longtime ace Chris Sale, who was tagged for six runs on five hits, two walks and two hit batters over four-plus innings. Zach Neto set the tone with a leadoff homer on Sale’s first pitch of the game before Jo Adell later smacked his first extra-base hit of the season, a two-run blast to knock Sale out of the game in the fifth.
“I was starting to forget what it feels like, so now it feels good to put up a good swing,” Adell said. “Obviously, Sale is a frontline starter, just an amazing pitcher, and we were able to kind of get him back in the zone and get our share of hits.”
Suzuki said he’s seen a more mature version of Soriano this year, and he didn’t let facing off against a potential Hall of Famer affect him on the mound.
“Just the composure and executing pitches,” Suzuki said. “When he loses a couple of pitches, he gets right back in it and refocuses and starts pounding the zone again. So I think his adjustments are quick and that’s what you want to see.”