4-22-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
There’s no bad blood between the Pirates and their former Rule 5 draft pick, Jose Soriano – who will oppose the Bucs in tonight’s game.
Selected by the Pirates 1-1 in the 2020 MLB Rule 5, Soriano was injured before he could debut with the Bucs and ended up having Tommy John surgery in 2021 – the 2nd of his career – and eventually was returned to the Angels as he progressed back from his procedure.
Soriano worked his way back in the Angels’ organization, debuting with the club in 2023 out of the bullpen before joining the rotation the next season.
He enters today with a 2-2 record and 3.16 ERA over his first 25.1 innings pitched on the year. He’s had two really great starts against the White Sox and Rays (14 innings, 7 hits and 1 run over those two outings) and two less-than stellar games against the Guardians and Rangers (11 innings, 15 hits and 8 runs).
Soriano has top tier velocity with a sinker that touches 99 and averages 96.7 as his main offering and a big breaking, mid-80s knuckle-curve as his primary secondary pitch. He generates a TON of ground-balls with both of these pitches resulting in negative average launch angles – that is, when hitters make contact at all.
His other offerings are actually more prone to swings-and-misses as he adds in a high-80s slider against right handed hitters (55% whiff rate) and a low-90s splitter for lefties (66.7%) which he uses later in counts down in the zone to finish off hitters.
His sinker gets significant movement glove-side with a low RPM (less than 2,000) which results in 14 inches of horizontal break.
That said, his sinker is probably the pitch for Bucs hitters to target. He goes to the pitch nearly 58% of the time with significantly bloated stats in front of the underlying metrics.
His oBA (.241) is significantly lower than his xoBA (.320) and the pitch results in the highest average exit velocity among his offerings at 91.8 MPH.
The movement can be tough to square up and elevate but getting bat on the ball is half the battle – a battle the Pirates will need to overcome if they will have any chance at success against Soriano tonight.
Steel City Pirates 