The score says a 8-8 tie the official final but the game went into the books as a 9-8 final as the Colorado Sky Sox win the fourth knock out round at Raimondi Field in Oakland on Thu Jul 24, 2025 (Oakland Ballers image)

Oakland Ballers game wrap:

Colorado Springs (2nd half:6-3;2025:2025:15-41) 001 000 010 8 11 1

Oakland (2nd half:5-4;2025:42-15) 000 030 140 8 9 2

4th round of KO inning

Time:2:53

Attendance: 1,677

Thursday, July 24, 2025

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–The variegated contests of the six game series between the Colorado Sky Sox and your Oakland Ballers unfolding this week at Raimondi Park took so many unexpended turns that it was difficult to imagine any set of surprises that could surpass them.

But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and this Wednesday night’s tangled web of improbabilities provided many of them. As Bill King, baseball’s renaissance man would—and did—say, “Not in your wildest alcoholic nightmare would you ever imagine such events unfolding!” So let me soberly try to summarize some of them.

The game went into the books as a 9-8 win for Colorado Springs,but the official box score showed an 8-8 tie with no winning or losing pitcher. This was owing to the Pioneer Baseball League’s bizarre knock out round rule for deciding tie games.

It resembles a home run derby in which each team provides one batter and a teammate to pitch to him. The details aren’t worth listing, and this time saving device delays games for anywhere between five and 15 minutes while the necessary equipment is put into place. Thursday night, it took four rounds of what the Ballers call the most exciting part of the game to give the visitor’s what went down in the won-lost records as a 9-8 win.

The real game, or games. began with an impressive performance by the Sox starting pitcher, Matthew Lauria. The only hit he allowed in his first four plus innings on the mound was a two out single to right center by Treemayne Cobb. That excellence enabled Colorado to hang on to a 1-0 lead going into the home half of the fifth, when what had been a tight pitchers’ duel turned into a rout in favor of the B’s.

Darryl Buggs led off with a walk and advanced to second on a balk. Cobb brought him home with his second hit, a game tying single to center. That was enough for Dimitri Young to yank Lauria, who for all his mastery, had allowed four walks and committed a fielding error and a balk and thrown 120 pitches.

His replacement, José Ochoa, threw another 31 to close out the frame, leaving the score 3-1 in favor of the home team. Adam Wilbert would follow Ochoa in the pitcher’s box at the beginning of the home sixth and retire the three batters he faced in order giving way to Danny Fox after the gathering of 1,677 fans had finished its choral version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

The game continued to be a close one, with the Ballers pulling further ahead with a run in the eighth and the Sky Sox adding one of their own in the top of the ninth.

The second in this Russian nesting doll of games came in the bottom of the ninth, when the Ballers blew it open with a four run outburst sparked by Nick Leehey’s a two run homer to left center with Dillon Tatum, who had walked, on board.

After that blast , Darryl Buggs doubled to left center and Fox plunked Cobb with a pitch, Jacob Norris relieved Fox and issued a pair of free passes, interspersed by a double steal and Christian Almanza’s sac fly before getting Tatum to pop out to end the carnage. The four runs scored that inning augured well for the B’s but the three runners stranded on the baseball paths were an adumbration of the trouble that lay in wait.

Noah Milllikan had started the game for the B’s and pitched eight full innings—an incredible feat in the PBL—and allowed only two runs on five hits and no walks, while striking out a dozen batters. The long top of the eighth had given his arm a chance to freeze up, and surely Connor Sullivan could be counted on to hold a six run lead for one inning.

We soon learned that he couldn’t. He faced five batters and left with the score at 8-4 and two runners on base, replaced by Caleb Franzen. He was charged with two runs, one of the earned, and allowed four inherited runners to score. The inning was further tarnished by a bad throw on a difficult play that was charged as an error to Cobb and an atrocious and unnecessary throw that catcher Dillon Tatum heaved into center field.

The Ballers loaded the bases with one out against Alain López in their half of the ninth, but they couldn’t push a run across the plate.

Who knows what these two rivals have in store for Friday night’s encounter, which is scheduled to start at 6:35. There’s one thing we can reasonably expect to occur; July 25 is Grateful Dead Night, with a pregame concert scheduled and a large crowd expected.