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OAKLAND — With a bullpen that has taken more than its fair share of hits over the last month and a half, the Yankees added veteran left-hander Anthony Banda Sunday morning. The 29-year-old was in the Mariners’ minor league system, but opted out of his contract and the Yankees signed him and brought him to Oakland for Sunday’s series finale against the A’s at the Coliseum.
“Anthony had an out in his deal with Seattle. So it’s somebody that I know our front office had their eye on here for a little bit,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s made some mechanical adjustments that hopefully are good ones for him and hopefully it can serve us well too.”
Banda was 1-1 with a 5.88 ERA in 30 games with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays this season. In 78 career games, including six starts, over parts of six big league seasons with the Diamondbacks (2017), Rays (2018-20), Mets (2021), Pirates (2021-22) and Blue Jays (2022), Banda has gone 7-6 with one save and a 5.43 ERA. He has 102 strikeouts and 39 walks in 111 innings pitched.
He is here as a depth piece.
“He’ll get in there when there’s a matchup that we like,” Boone said. “He’s kind of dropped his arm angle a little bit which has hopefully added a little bit of deception to what he’s doing and we’ll see what we have.”
For a bullpen that had been such a big part of the Yankees’ first-half success, there has been a lot of change in the second half. Boone sees it as an opportunity for young guys like Ron Marinaccio and even Banda, who has bounced around a bit.
“I go back to a lot of really good things happening with a lot of guys down there. It’s now trying to see guys go grab and earn different roles in different spots and hopefully we get ourselves in a good situation moving forward here,” Boone said. “Hopefully [Banda’s] a guy that can add to some of that depth.”
The Yankees have lost Aroldis Chapman (infection) and Nestor Cortes (groin strain) already on this trip. Clarke Schmidt had to be pulled out of the bullpen to start in Cortes’ spot on Sunday. Chapman went on the IL Saturday with an infection after getting a new tattoo this week.
The Yankees are already without Chad Green (Tommy John surgery) and Michael King (fractured elbow) for the rest of the season. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Yankees transferred Luis Gil, who had Tommy John surgery earlier this year, to the 60-day IL.
Clay Holmes, who has been on the IL for the last two weeks with lower back tightness, is expected to be activated on Monday. They will have to make another move to get him back on the active 26-man roster.
The only good news the Yankees finally got out of their bullpen this week is that Chapman, whose infection in the leg was getting worse after he arrived at the ballpark on Thursday, was responding to medication.
“It actually seemed better last night when we got back [to the hotel]. The trainers report on him and when I talked to him this morning it was better,” Boone said. “He’s gonna come in. He should be here in a little bit. And we’ll see what we have there, but it seems like it is improving actually.”
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