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.
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 and (2011) Shohei Ohtani (2023).
He saw that 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.
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.
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.