José Soriano's Ace Status: Angels' Wild Card Hope

0:00On April 21st, Angel's pitcher Jose Soriano looks like he's finally hit a status after a brutal injury road. The right-hander battled two Tommy John surgeries and time-mossed a rehab, but he stayed mostly healthy since 2023. Now, in 2026, he's off to a scorching start with four outings, 27 innings and just one earn run for a 0.33. He started as a reliever last year, then locked down the rotation spot in 2024 and 2025, piling up over 280 innings total. Soriano crushes ground balls at 60% or better each season thanks to his sinker heavy mix early on. This year, he's dialing that back to 30% and pumping more foreseen fastballs at 23%. Fans and scouts are buzzing because his strikeout rate jumped to 32% already, with a 2.33 FIP backing it up. It's not all luck, his walk rate steady around 10%. For the angels, sitting at 10 and 10, this lines up with Mike Trout's hot streak and young guys like Oswald Paraza stepping up big.

1:04The team's cut payroll and hasn't contended in a decade, so internal breakouts like this from Soriano, Reed Detmer's and others could sparkle wild, car push in the expanded playoffs. But death has burned them before, with fast starts that fade. If they're hovering around 500 by July, Soriano's two-plus years of control make him prime trade bait, let the Marlins cast in on there. Injury prone arms, either way, the halos finally have a gem to build around or flip smartly. This has been MLB News Today, powered by AI. I'm Cory with the story.