Banda it is
Banda was so impressive, in fact, that the club is giving him the start on Friday, a decision that was formally announced after Thursday’s 10-8 win over the Cubs.
But a less obvious reason for not adding a starter had to do with roster construction. The pickup of reliever David Hernandez created the need to free up one roster spot. Adding a starter would have been another.
“We had to pick and choose which direction we were going to go,” Hazen said. “If you went and acquired a starter, that’d be great, but you had to then assume that the starting pitcher, assuming health for the next month, would have to go in the bullpen for the next month when Robbie came back.
“And so acquiring a reliever and acquiring a starter who was then going to go into the bullpen presented a logistical challenge for us until we got to September. There was no guarantee that that starting pitcher was going to be able to transition into the bullpen for a month or two or three weeks, whatever it would be. So we kind of had to make choices, and those were the choices that we made.”
Unsurprisingly, Banda was given the nod for Friday, a decision Lovullo said was delayed because the club wanted to be sure he arrived safely in San Francisco on Thursday.
Though he’s been with Triple-A Reno, he hasn’t pitched since July 27 and wasn’t listed among the Aces’ probable