José Soriano Posts 0.84 ERA in Seven Starts for Angels
José Soriano has opened 2026 with a 0.84 ERA in seven starts, and the Angels right-hander has done it with 49 strikeouts over 42 and two-thirds innings. He has allowed only four earned runs, a start that puts him at the front of the Dominican group being tracked in the season’s first month and change.
Soriano’s 0.84 ERA
The number that jumps out is the ERA, but the shape of the line tells the story. Soriano has paired the 0.84 mark with a 30 percent strikeout rate, well above the league average of 22 percent, while opponents are hitting.164 against him.
Those figures put him at the table of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball. For the Angels, that means his outings have been built on missed bats and weak contact, not short bursts of luck over a small sample.
Dominican starters in focus
Soriano is one of five Dominicans highlighted for interesting starts in 2026, but he is the strongest starting point on the list. Randy Vásquez, another right-hander, has made six appearances for San Diego and carries a 3.44 FIP, a 1.15 WHIP and 34 strikeouts.
The rest of the roundup is led by bats. Oneil Cruz has reached a 62.0 percent hard-hit rate and produced a 119.0 miles per hour blast, the fastest of the year, while adding nine home runs, 23 runs scored, 26 runs batted in and 10 stolen bases.
De la Cruz and Cruz
Elly de la Cruz was the first Dominican to reach 10 home runs in 2026, with five of them coming against right-handed pitchers. He leads his position in slugging percentage at.547, stolen bases with eight, runs scored with 26 and home runs, and he has a 141 wRC+.
The Cincinnati shortstop’s line gives the list a second elite track, but Soriano’s start is still the sharpest number in the group. Even the other hot bat in the roundup, the Tampa Bay third baseman, is being measured more by production over a 15-game stretch — 17 hits, seven home runs, 12 runs batted in, a.956 OPS, nine extra-base hits and a.258 batting average — than by the same kind of run prevention Soriano has posted.
Through the first month and several days of the season, Soriano has turned his seven starts into the clearest early pitching statement among the Dominicans on this list, and the next test is whether he keeps that gap open as the workload climbs.
