Equipped with a fastball and sinker whose velocities climb toward the upper portions of the mid-90s, along with a devastating slider 5-10 mph slower, Banda climbed into manager Dave Roberts' circle of trust by the time October rolled around, posting a 3.08 ERA and 3.67 FIP throughout his 49.2 innings of work.
As Banda told Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, shortly after acquisition, the Dodgers surrounded Banda with pitching technology and tweaked his "unorthodox" slider grip, advising him to dig into the ball more and throw it with better control.
Despite struggling with his command, walking six, his stuff played well and he struck out 11 batters. Especially crucial in the NLCS, when the top lefty in the Dodgers bullpen, Alex Vesia, was sidelined with an injury, Banda emerged as a key piece in a Dodgers bullpen recognized for their unprecedented dominance throughout the 2024 postseason.
Not only did the Dodgers lower Banda's arm angle to 34 degrees as opposed to 43 in 2023, making him especially tough on lefty batters, but they also improved fastball by a tick of velocity and the batting average against it thus dropped from .316 in 2023 to .231.
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