Propelled by Jose Soriano’s elite ERA and Cy Young trajectory, the Los Angeles Angels' rotation is right outside the top 10 in the power rankings.
The Los Angeles Angels again don't have much ti get excited about.
The good news is that Mike Trout is back to hitting home runs, and a surprise is starting pitcher Jose Soriano looking like a Cy Young candidate early on this season.
However, the Angels are still at the bottom of the MLB power rankings, and this looks to be another season without playoff baseball in Anaheim.
But, the pitching isn't to be blamed, at least the starting rotation.
Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report ranked the rotations for every team, and the Angels came in at No. 12, just short of the top 10 with the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers right ahead of them, respectively.
Jose Soriano, who was the Angels' Opening Day starter, has been amazing. He has a 6-2 record with a 1.66 ERA, and he threw 7.2 innings allowing just one run in his latest outing against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Soriano had three consecutive starts allowing zero runs in April, and he began the season with such outings as well.
22-year-old Walbert Urena has been a pleasant surprise, and he has a 1-4 record but a 3.29 ERA with four runs combined in his last three outings.
Jack Kochanowicz has a 2-2 record with a 3.97 ERA, Reid Detmers is 1-3 with a 4.33 ERA, and former Blue Jays star Alek Manoah threw five shutout innings a few days ago in a promising outing.
"The ace of the Halos now has a 1.66 ERA and 10.1 K/9 and is maybe the top candidate for the AL Cy Young outside of the dynamic duo atop the Yankees rotation. The rest of this rotation, however, has fallen somewhere on the spectrum between "just OK" and "woof," Miller wrote.
The ace, of course, is Soriano, and Yusei Kikuchi went 0-3 with a 5.81 ERA before suffering an injury.
This rotation is a bit inflated due to Soriano's video-game numbers, and if it weren't for him, there wouldn't be much to be excited about for the Angels' pitching staff.
Here's a fun stat. As of May 13, the Angels have 16 wins, and Soriano has accounted for six of those.
Soriano is top-3 in ERA in all of baseball, and he is fifth in strikeouts as well, so he is single-handedly leading this rotation, although Urena has shown promise as of late, and who knows what Manoah can do when given a fair shot.