José Soriano’s fastball has been the question all season, and Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre offered the latest answer.
For a while, the Blue Jays right-hander looked like he might outrun the problem. He opened the year with a stunning 0.48 ERA over 42 ⅔ innings in March and April, then the league started catching up.
In May and June, he worked 28 ⅔ innings with a 5.34 ERA, and the hard contact followed. By the time he took the mound against the Seattle Mariners, the pattern was clear: hitters had been doing most of their damage when Soriano lived up in the zone with his fastball.
That trend showed up again when Cal Raleigh turned on a 96 mph fastball and sent it out to right field for a 1-0 Mariners lead. Soriano gave a small turn toward his left, stared into right field, and lowered his head in a brief flash of frustration.
He knew exactly what had happened. It was his first home run allowed against his fastball in August.
The numbers tell the story in blunt terms. Over his four-season career, 57.8% of the home runs Soriano has given up have come against his fastball.
This season, 10 of the 14 homers against him have been on that pitch, and 22 of his 32 extra-base hits have come off it as well. In his 27 starts this year, hitters have taken advantage of pitches up in the zone 70% of the time.
Even so, Soriano hasn’t stopped leaning on the pitch. This month, he’s using his fastball more than he did in July and August combined, up to 54.1% from 49.3% between April and June.
That matters as he settles in with his new catchers, most often Alejandro Kirk and Brandon Valenzuela. It also helps explain why the Blue Jays were interested in him in the first place: durability, ground balls, and a power arsenal that can miss bats when it’s working.
The trouble is that the strikeouts have dipped. Soriano’s rate has fallen from 10.34 K/9 in March and April to 6.75 since joining the Blue Jays.
This month, opponents have also been making contact at a high level, with a 94.1% Z-Contact% that stands as his highest monthly mark of the season. At the same time, there are signs of adjustment.
His Barrel/BBE% has dropped to 7.1%, and after posting his best month in July at 2.4%, he has been able to recreate some of that improvement in August.
The contact has still been the nagging issue. Hitters are batting .479 BABIP against his fastballs this month, even though his Whiff% has improved a bit.
Soriano’s secondary pitches have helped him survive the rough patches. His slider has been especially sharp, holding opponents to a .167 average with no home runs allowed.
The splitter and curveball are his two biggest strikeout finishers, and together with the slider they have powered 62% of his 149 strikeouts this season. The slider, in particular, sets the table for everything else.
After Raleigh’s homer, Seattle added two more runs in the fourth inning, but Soriano settled back in and threw three straight scoreless frames. It was his second start of at least seven innings in his last 17 outings, and only his fifth such start all season. Toronto backed him with a pair of two-run rallies in the fifth and sixth innings, both of them needed to keep the game moving in his direction.
Seattle managed only two hits in 14 at-bats against Soriano after Raleigh’s blast, and the bullpen protected the lead over the final third of the game. Soriano picked up his 11th win and lowered his ERA to 3.45.
With the Blue Jays’ bullpen behind him, those starts that once might have ended in losses or no-decisions can now swing his way. But it still comes back to the same place: Soriano’s fastball has to keep finding the right spots if he wants to keep building on the version he showed in April.
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