Pittsburgh Pirates: Jose Soriano Dealing With Injury

The Pittsburgh Pirates in their quest to rebuild selected a pitcher with the first pick in the 2020 Rule Five Draft.  He is currently dealing with an injury.

As Ben Cherington has continued to focus on building the pitching pipeline for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they added two pitchers in the rule five draft.  The first was pitcher Jose Soriano from the Los Angeles Angels.  He is a hard throwing right-handed pitcher who was recovering from Tommy John surgery.  The other was Luis Oviedo, who the club added via a trade.  Oviedo has struggled in Pittsburgh while Soriano has rehabbed from his surgery.

Soriano ranks as the Pirates number 22 prospect per FanGraphs with a future fastball grade of 60 and command 40.  It’s a power profile that projects better in the bullpen.  Cherington mentioned they will develop him as a starter, something seen in his rehab.  He’s made two outings and has posted a 14.73 ERA with a 15 percent walk rate.

In his first start on May 20th, he went three innings with five strikeouts with one hit and zero walks.  His second outing he lasted just two thirds of an innings.  In that outing he allowed seven runs (six earned)  with five hits allowed and three walks, and one strikeout.  There could be a reason for that.

Today, Tom Tomczyk updated reporters with news on Soriano.  He is dealing with right elbow discomfort and will be reexamined.  This could explain part of his struggles as the command was not there in his last outing and elbow pain would restrict that.

There is some concern given that he is recovering from Tommy John and will need to be shutdown.  He was tracking to return to the big league club in late July after his rehab was completed.  Now, that time table has changed and the pitcher will be getting more information on the elbow.  Hopefully for him, it is not a serious injury and he can get back on the mound.