{"id":624684,"date":"2026-04-23T01:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624684\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:04:24","slug":"angels-jose-soriano-lowers-era-to-0-24-best-mark-in-mlb-history-through-first-6-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624684\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels’ Jos\u00e9 Soriano lowers ERA to 0.24, best mark in MLB history through first 6 starts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think of any great pitcher in modern MLB history. None of them had a start to the season quite like Los Angeles Angels<\/a> right-hander Jos\u00e9 Soriano<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With five scoreless innings against the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> on Wednesday, Soriano lowered his ERA to 0.24. That\u2019s not just the best mark in the league; it\u2019s the best by any pitcher in MLB history through his first six starts of the season (min. 30 innings), according to MLB.com\u2019s Sarah Langs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Soriano is also the only pitcher in MLB history to allow only one run across his first six starts of the season, per the Angels<\/a>. The Angels are 6-0 in his starts, with a 7-3 win over the Blue Jays<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Soriano\u2019s lone earned run came against the Atlanta Braves<\/a> on April 6, when fellow breakout player Drake Baldwin<\/a> knocked a solo homer off Soriano in the first inning.<\/p>\n

Here is that homer:<\/p>\n

The obvious comparison is Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> great Fernando Valenzuela\u2019s legendary run to open the 1981 season, in which he threw eight straight complete games to begin the year and ended up winning the Cy Young Award, Rookie of the Year and a World Series title. In that case, however, Valenzuela allowed a run in two of his first six starts, making his ERA 0.33.<\/p>\n

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Obviously, most teams and fans would take Valenzuela\u2019s run over Soriano\u2019s, given the innings discrepancy (54 to 37 2\/3), but those two 1981 runs give Soriano the ERA edge.<\/p>\n

Who is Jos\u00e9 Soriano, the Angels\u2019 budding ace?<\/p>\n

Soriano, 27, is in his fourth MLB season and had been a solid enough pitcher for the Angels entering 2026, with a 3.89 career ERA. His strikeout and walk rates weren\u2019t what you would call impressive, but an arsenal headlined by a high-velocity sinker gave him an elite 66% groundball rate in 2025, per Baseball Savant.<\/p>\n

Now, Soriano is getting strikeouts while still getting groundballs. As of Wednesday, his 30.7% strikeout rate is 11th among 82 qualified MLB pitchers. Per Baseball Savant, batters have managed only two hits, both singles, off his sinker in his first six starts, and his knuckle curve, his second-most used pitch, has caused hitters to whiff on 50% of swings.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s dominant stuff from a pitcher not many fans outside Orange County had heard of entering this season.<\/p>\n

Will Soriano keep it up? No starting pitcher is likely to sustain an ERA below 1.00, but his peripherals certainly indicate the Angels at least have a well-above-average pitcher on their hands. Hitters will try to make adjustments, but pitchers with high strikeout rates and high groundball rates, backed by high velocity, tend to do quite well in MLB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think of any great pitcher in modern MLB history. None of them had a start to the season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[4996,64,63,7315,302581,293338,5262,1187,591,47541,302582,85,30189,37279,5161],"class_list":{"0":"post-624684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-atlanta-braves","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-drake-baldwin","12":"tag-fernando-valenzuela","13":"tag-jose-soriano","14":"tag-los-angeles-angels","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-scoreless-innings","18":"tag-soriano","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-starts","21":"tag-the-angels","22":"tag-toronto-blue-jays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}