What’s Behind José Soriano’s Recent Struggles?
After a blistering-hot start to his 2026 season, José Soriano's production has taken a slight step back. What's behind his recent struggles?
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The Los Angeles Angels entered the 2026 season with a new pitching coach to guide the rotation and bullpen. They hired Mike Maddux over the offseason, stealing him from the division-rival Texas Rangers.
While not every pitcher on the staff has been lights out, he’s made his presence known in the arms of José Soriano, Reid Detmers, Sam Bachman, and Chase Silseth. All four have been the best arms on the staff.
Likewise, Walbert Ureña debuted earlier this year and owns a 2.44 ERA across 12 appearances, 10 of those being starts. Since he joined the Angels rotation, Ureña has been the best pitcher in the rotation and one of the best starters in all of MLB.
Bachman and Silseth are a pair of relievers who have had a hard time finding their way at the major league level since debuting. This year, they have been the most reliable arms to call upon from a pretty rough Angels bullpen overall.
They each have bounced around the starting rotation while also seeing time in relief. Bachman has been one of the best relievers in baseball before his blowup outing over the weekend, while Silseth has seen major improvements and is pitching to a 1.78 ERA.
That brings us to Soriano, who had been a solid contributor to the Angels rotation the last few years, but he came out as a different dominant self to start his 2026 campaign.
Through his first six starts this season, Soriano became the first MLB starting pitcher since 1900 to allow one or fewer total runs through his first six starts of the year. Across his first 37.2 innings, he only gave up one earned run.
This incredible start translated to a 0.24 ERA to go along with a 0.82 WHIP. He was making an early case for American League Cy Young, but things have unraveled for the worse since. Soriano even took home the American League Pitcher of the Month for March/April.
Now 15 starts into the year, Soriano’s ERA has jumped up to a 2.76 mark. It’s not a bad mark by any stretch, but he’s been having a tough time across his last handful of starts, with the exception of his latest time out against Tampa Bay.
What’s changed for Soriano since his blistering-hot start, and how do the Angels get him back to that form? Let’s dive in.
Command Inconsistency
Soriano burst out of the gate with six dominant starts followed by eight outings that didn’t go very well.
During his first six starts, Soriano pitched 37.2 innings while only giving up one earned run. In his following eight starts from April 28 to June 7, Soriano totaled 44.1 innings while giving up 26 earned runs.
A big reason for this dramatic drop-off in performance was his command. When Soriano is on point with his command, he is lights out. But when he has trouble putting his pitches where he wants them to go, that’s when he starts to run into some trouble.
That was even evident in his most recent start against the Rays, where he went five shutout innings. While there was some traffic, he was able to make the right pitches at the right times to get out of jams.
The biggest flaw Soriano found himself susceptible to over his career is his walk rate. This year, he is handing out free passes 11.7% of the time, which is slightly higher than his career mark of 10.8%.
Even when Soriano goes seven scoreless innings, he’ll give up some walks. It all comes down to how efficient he is with his pitch count and how many groundouts he can get. If he walks a batter, he has the elite ability to produce ground balls and generate double plays.
While Soriano has elite stuff when he’s on, over his career he hasn’t really been a pitcher who racks up a ton of strikes every start. He has a career 22.9% strikeout rate, which is right around league average.
He has shown flashes of collecting strikeouts when he fanned 10 batters on back-to-back starts earlier this year on April 6 and 12 against the Braves and Reds, respectively. In his other 12 starts, Soriano has only averaged 5.6 strikeouts per start.
That’s a respectable clip, but it shows that he can rely heavily on his ability to force ground balls. To his credit, he’s one of the best in that department, as his 53.8% ground-ball rate puts him in the 91st percentile.
Even with a really good ground-ball rate, Soriano has been giving up a lot of home runs in recent starts. Again, going back to his first six starts, he only gave one home run, which came off the bat of Drake Baldwin. Over his following eight starts, he surrendered a total of eight homers.
This is as a result of him not commanding his pitches. Soriano can go from placing his sinker, knuckle-curve, and splitter wherever he wants to a guy who is leaving his pitches up in the zone allowing batters to put the barrel to the baseball.
Unhealthy Pitch Counts
Digging more into Soriano’s ability to manage his pitch count, in his dominant six-start stretch between March 26 and April 22, his pitch count sat in the 80’s and 90’s. He did throw 106 against the Reds, but it was during a seven-inning shutout with 10 strikeouts — one of his best outings of his career.
In his eight starts from April 28 to June 7, Soriano tossed over 100 pitches in four of those starts. Only one of those appearances resulted in a good outing. It came on May 10 in Toronto against the Blue Jays where Soriano surrendered one earned run over 7.2 innings while tossing 103 pitches.
While it’s fine to throw over 100 pitches during a start, it matters how a starting pitcher is going about it. It’s normal for a starter to toss 100 pitches over six to seven quality innings, but it has been the opposite for Soriano as of late.
On May 4 against the Chicago White Sox, Soriano only lasted four innings while totaling 88 pitches. More recently on June 1 against the Colorado Rockies, Soriano threw 108 pitches with only 58 going for strikes, lasting just 4.2 innings. He issued 10 walks and three home runs between those two starts.
Even in his latest successful outing, he threw 76 pitches across five innings, but only 47 were for strikes. He was able to effectively generate ground balls, but more often than not high pitch counts have led to his downfall.
Recap and Outlook
To return back to what we saw in March and April, Soriano will need to better command his pitches while cutting back on the home runs. He’s been leaving his pitches up in the zone, making them more hittable.
When Soriano takes the bump, his first-inning command and velocity has tended to foreshadow how the rest of his start will go. It’s been a huge factor this season and previous years. His 3.60 first-inning ERA is his second highest trailing his 10.13 mark in the sixth inning.
Overall, command is huge for Soriano and it will have a big impact on his success moving forward. There is still plenty of time in the season for him to return to early-season form and be in contention for the American League Cy Young. It’s all about being consistent.
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Written by
Cade is a recent high school graduate. He currently writes for Just Baseball while also contributing to InsideHalos. He has previous experience writing for Grand Central…