The MLB ERA leaderboard right now is a thing of beauty.
At No. 1 we've got José Soriano, the breakout Angels righty who has a historically low 0.24 ERA through six starts.
But right behind him at No. 2? None other than Shohei Ohtani, who has a 0.38 ERA and just might mess around and win his first Cy Young.
Soriano and Shohei both pitched yesterday, and despite Ohtani coming into his start with a 0.50 ERA and Soriano coming into his start with a 0.28 ERA, both of them somehow lowered those marks during their outings.
Both of them are dominating. Both of them have nasty stuff. So who would you rather have on the mound right now? (And no, you don't get Ohtani's hitting, too. We're just talking pitching.)
Here's an Ohtani vs. Soriano tale of the tape.
2026 STATS
- Soriano: 6 starts, 5-0, 0.24 ERA, 0.82 WHIP, 43 K's in 37 2/3 innings (10.3 K/9)
- Ohtani: 4 starts, 2-0, 0.38 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 25 K's in 24 innings (9.4 K/9)
Soriano has done it over a couple more starts than Ohtani, and has racked up a few more K's. But Ohtani is actually allowing slightly fewer baserunners (0.75 WHIP to Soriano's 0.82 WHIP) and has a slightly better strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.2 to Soriano's 3.3).
PITCH ARSENALS
- Soriano (5 pitches): Sinker, knuckle-curve, 4-seam fastball, splitter, slider
- Ohtani (7 pitches): 4-seam fastball, sweeper, curveball, splitter, sinker, slider, cutter
Ohtani has one of the bigger pitch arsenals in baseball, throwing seven different pitches. And all of them are nasty. Both he and Soriano are flamethrowers, but Ohtani is throwing even harder right now. He's hit triple digits 12 times to five for Soriano, and has three 100-plus mph strikeouts (including two last night). And that's before you get to his ridiculous secondaries, like his sweeper, splitter and curveball.
Soriano also has multiple wipeout pitches, though, recording at least seven K's on four different pitch types this season -- his knuckle-curve (18), splitter (nine), four-seamer (nine) and sinker (seven).
BEST PITCH
- Soriano: Sinker
Soriano's knuckle-curve has been awesome, having racked up 18 strikeouts (most of any curveball) with a 49% swing-and-miss rate. But his sinker is his bread-and-butter, and it's been the single most valuable pitch in baseball so far in 2026 in terms of runs prevented. Soriano's sinker drops six inches more than an average big league sinker, which is why it's inducing a 71% ground-ball rate and holding hitters to a .119 batting average.
- Ohtani: Sweeper
Ohtani's heater has a strong case here, too -- it's been the most valuable four-seamer in MLB this year and ranks just behind Soriano's sinker on the overall leaderboard. But we're going to go with his signature sweeper, which he used to dominate the league from 2021-23 and has brought back in full force this season. Ohtani's sweeper is sitting at over 85 mph with 15 inches of horizontal break -- a terrific combination that's producing a 45% swing-and-miss rate.
KEY CHANGE THIS SEASON
- Soriano: More 4-seamers
Soriano's sinker might be his best pitch, but he's actually throwing it less often this season (from 49% usage in 2025 down to 30% in 2026). Instead, he's mixing in a lot more four-seam fastballs (24% usage, up from 9% in 2025) -- but that's actually making his sinker even better, because having an extra fastball variation helps change hitters' eye level and stop them from keying in on the sinker, as pitching coach Mike Maddux told The Athletic's Tyler Kepner.
- Ohtani: A steady diet of splitters and curves
Ohtani's splitter and curveball have been his top weapons against left-handed hitters this season (he's throwing them a combined 40% of the time to lefties). That's a big change from the 2025 regular season, when Ohtani had all but phased out his once-unhittable splitter from his arsenal due to erratic command, and when he didn't even throw a single curveball until August. But the Ohtani splitter is back -- a trend that started in the postseason -- and his curveball movement is sharper than ever.
FUN FACT
- Soriano: His 0.24 ERA is the lowest in a starting pitcher's first six starts of a season since earned runs became an official stat in 1913 (minimum 30 innings pitched).
- Ohtani: He's just the fourth Dodgers pitcher to allow zero or one earned run total through his first four games of a season (minimum 20 innings pitched), along with Kenta Maeda in 2016, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 and '85 and Wheezer Dell in 1916.