WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The frustration was palpable in Michael Soroka’s body language and in his words. This may have been one spring training start from a veteran with a guaranteed spot in the Nationals’ Opening Day rotation, but it wasn’t at all what Soroka had in mind when he took the mound this afternoon.
“I just couldn’t make an adjustment,” the right-hander said after four laborious innings during an 11-5 loss to the Rays. “I didn’t make it early enough. I didn’t find it until it was too late. That’s unacceptable.”
Soroka’s nightmare afternoon started from the get-go. He walked the first three batters he faced, the last of them on four pitches to warrant a mound visit from pitching coach Jim Hickey.
He managed to right his ship enough to get out of the inning with two runs across, but the struggles continued throughout his outing. He finished with six walks surrendered, a far cry from the one free pass he issued in his previous two Grapefruit League starts combined.
The problem: Mechanics. Soroka knew he was off, but he simply couldn’t figure out how to get his body and arm back on track as the start progressed. That, more than anything, is what bothered him.
“I’ve always prided myself on figuring it out right away,” he said. “I would throw a good one, and then I couldn’t quite feel that landing spot and get that timing down out front. It’s just going to be one of those days when I learn from the mistakes and write it off as just a clunker we’ve got to get out of the way.”
Soroka compounded the walks issue with a pair of home runs surrendered in the top of the fourth: a three-run shot by Tampa Bay No. 9 hitter Jake Mangum, then a solo blast later in the inning by Josh Lowe (brother of Nationals first baseman Nathaniel).
By the end, his 1.29 spring ERA ballooned to 5.73, his WHIP from 0.71 to 1.45.
“This is why we go through spring training,” manager Davey Martinez said. “The second inning, it looked like he was going to find himself. He just couldn’t sustain that same delivery. It was a rough day for him. What I do like is he threw 90 pitches and at the end he was still strong. But it was all about location. He couldn’t find the strike zone today.”
Soroka is scheduled to make one more start this spring, Friday against the Marlins. His next turn would come on the day before the season opener, so he might need to pitch to live hitters in some kind of simulated game at Nationals Park to get his work in. After that, he’s lined up to make his 2025 debut March 31 against the Blue Jays in Toronto.
It had been an outstanding spring to date for Soroka, who is looking to prove the Nats made a savvy move giving him a $9 million contract and a chance to start after a rough 2024 in which he went 0-10 for the lowly White Sox and was bumped to the bullpen.
He now needs to rediscover the form that impressed everyone prior to today before camp wraps up in a week.
“This is going to be one of those ones where you watch it and you get rid of the negative feelings you ran into while you were out there,” he said. “You’ve just got to flush it and go back to the things I found that got me into a good place the first two outings. Really this whole spring, I’ve been locked in. I just couldn’t find it today. I’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”