Bender is bullying right-handed batters through the first third of the season to re-establish himself as a trustworthy setup man.
Taylor Ward was one of the hottest hitters in Major League Baseball. The Los Angeles Angels outfielder entered Sunday having recorded extra-base hits in 10 consecutive games, the longest such streak in Angels history. He was exactly who the Halos wanted at the plate in this situation: trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning with two runners on, needing a home run to tie things up.
To escape the jam, Anthony Bender leaned entirely on his best pitch.
Bender made Ward flinch at a sweeper for called strike one. He threw another in a similar location, which Ward swung underneath and fouled back. He tripled down in an 0-2 count, but missed a few inches off the outside corner. The veteran right-hander finally put Ward away by inducing an ugly chase in the other batter’s box.
anthony bender sweeper vs taylor ward.mp4
Bender has been great against right-handed batters throughout his Miami Marlins career (.550 OPS allowed and 31.5 K% in 384 PA). However, he has achieved a new level of dominance in 2025 and it’s largely because of this weapon.
Opponents have a .031 batting average this season in at-bats ending with Bender’s sweeper. No individual pitch type that’s been thrown at least 100 times against major league competition is producing a lower BA, according to Baseball Savant.
When Bender burst onto the scene in 2021, he had a standout slider that averaged 84.8 mph. Although his current sweeper has near-identical velocity (84.5 mph), it moves differently due to a change in mechanics. Bender lowered his arm angle following Tommy John surgery—it has changed from 25 degrees as a rookie to 17 degrees this season. That creates more gloveside break and reduces vertical drop.
This is the first season of Bender’s career that he has been consistently utilizing two distinct breaking balls. His reshaped sweeper is being complemented by a harder gyro slider.Â
Bender’s sweeper is the key to his success against same-handed batters, representing more than 60% of his pitch mix in those matchups. Against lefties, it’s a kitchen sink approach—he is willing to throw five different pitches in any count, including both sweepers and sliders.
Dating back to 2024, Bender has thrown 571 sweepers and yielded only one home run. Eventual National League Rookie of the Year runner-up Jackson Merrill took him deep on August 10. As it turns out, Bender was dealing with a right shoulder impingement at the time that would require a stint on the injured list, so even Merrill’s achievement comes with an asterisk.
Under the hood, Bender’s age-30 campaign has been unremarkable. Through 21 ⅓ innings pitched, his strikeout and walk rates are both on pace to be career-worsts. He ranks in the sixth percentile among MLB pitchers in hard-hit rate allowed, yet it’s only resulting in a .214 batting average on balls in play (the league-wide BABIP is .290). He has undeniably benefited from some good fortune.
Bender was already the most likely midseason trade candidate in the Marlins bullpen because he has substantial high-leverage experience and is closest to free agency (eligible after the 2027 season). Miami’s objective should be something similar to the Deyvison De Los Santos/Andrew Pintar package that they netted from the Arizona Diamondbacks last July in exchange for A.J. Puk.
Maybe Bender’s sweeper truly is a cheat code, but I now find myself wondering if he could be on the move well in advance of the deadline before the rest of the league has too many opportunities to solve it.Â