Walbert Ureña just keeps stacking dominant starts, and the Angels rookie right-hander now has two of his best performances of the season coming in back-to-back tests against elite competition.
After blanking the Yankees across seven innings on Monday, Ureña followed it up by going eight full frames against the Pirates on Tuesday, outdueling Paul Skenes in the process. For an Angels club trying to build toward something better, that kind of outing from a young starter is exactly the sort of foundation piece they’ve been searching for.
Against New York, Ureña allowed just one run and struck out eight without issuing a walk. The lone damage came on a mistake to Spencer Jones, but otherwise he kept the Bronx Bombers from doing much of anything. He carried that same formula into his next start, this time against a Pittsburgh lineup with Skenes on the mound and a lot less margin for error.
Ureña made one costly pitch there as well, giving up a home run to Henry Davis. Outside of that, though, he was in complete control. The Pirates managed only three hits, and the rookie kept the ball on the ground and out of danger by mixing speeds and spots with real confidence.
His sinker was sitting in the 97-99 mile per hour range and helped him get ahead early in counts. That set up a changeup that has clearly taken a step forward, sitting around 90 mph and drawing either swings and misses or weak contact to the infield. The result was a career-high 16 ground ball outs.
The week as a whole was even more impressive. Ureña threw 15 innings, gave up only two runs, struck out 12 and walked just one. That’s about as clean as it gets.
For the season, the rookie now owns a 2.85 ERA across 123.1 innings, and his performance has started to make the Angels’ rotation look far sturdier than it did earlier in the year. With Reid Detmers and Ureña at the front of a series, the Angels suddenly have a real chance to win on those nights. George Klassen, Ryan Johnson and now Grayson Rodriguez pitching much better only adds to that sense of momentum.
Ureña’s start to his rookie year has been impressive enough that he should draw some down ballot Rookie of the Year votes this offseason. But if Angels fans were picking the year’s biggest surprise, Walbert Ureña would have it locked up.
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