Oakland Ballers played this past week against the Boise Hawks on Sun Jul 26, 2026 at Raimondi Park in Oakland (Oakland Ballers photo)
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Oakland, CA
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–Another challenge is keeping up with the Ballers’ transactions. We usually find out about them when the PA announcer tells us that a player entering the game is making some sort of debut. The PCL’s transfer screen’s entry was out of date when I looked at it at 10:00 o’clock last night. Here’s the new information I found:
· The Ballers signed right handed pitcher Brock Mayer early in July.
· They acquired Myles Beale from the Schaumburg Boomers on July 3.
· They traded outfielder T.J .McKenzie to the Red Pocket Mobiles for a player to be named later.
· They received outfielder Mitchell Stanford from the Gateway Grizzlies in exchange for a player to be named later.
With the indispensable Tremayne Cobb still recovering from his injury, the slugging outfielder Tristan Moore and promising short stop T.J. Rogers got and will continue to get a lot of playing time.
This past week of Ballers baseball began on a bleak note. There was no expected date for the return of Tremayne Cobb, their key player, both offensively and defensively. Still, Miles’ Marauders fought on so well that it didn’t seem too unrealistic to hope that they could claw their way into the post season. But, before the team could even start to rise, it had to fall for the seventh straight time. That’s what it did in the first game of the second week of the second half of the baseball year, overwhelmed by the first half division champs from Long Beach.
The week also ended with an Oakland loss, but, oh, what a glorious ride separated the two defeats!
The B’s endured the six hour bus ride to Long Beach only to be caught in the undertow and drowned, 7-0, on Tuesday, July 21. The results of that no-contest gave no hint of the team’s return to life that would start on Wednesday.
Oakland Ballers (0-7,22-33) 000 000 000 0 6 0
Long Beach Coast (7-0,44-11) 100 320 10x 7 10 0
Winning pitcher: Jack Martin (6-0) Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-3)
Time: 2:33 Attendance: 1,831
The only Baller to get an extra base hit was Jake Allgeyer, whose leadoff double down the right field line was wasted. Brendan O’Sullivan, trying to fill Cobb’s cleats, was the only Oaklander who had a multi-hit game, and both of his singles also were wasted. Hunter Day, the first of five Baller hurlers, took the loss. He surrendered eight of the Coast’s ten hits and six of their seven runs. The other was charged to Chistian Díaz, and it was unearned, the result of a passed ball that allowed Patrick Roche to advance to second and score on Cooper Vest’s single to center.
The next evening, July 22, saw some extraordinary baseball. I’m not sure if any previous Pioneer Baseball League game had gone seven full innings with only one run having been scored. But this one did, and it was the Coast that scored it.
Oakland Ballers (1-7,23-33) 000 000 020 2 7 0
Long Beach Coast (7-1,44-12) 010 000 000 1 10 0
Wnning pitcher: Valek Cisneros (5-0) Losing pitcher: Johnathan Kozasky (1-1)
Save: Langston Burkett (2)
Time: 2:57 Attendance: 1,096
But then, in the top of the eighth, Esai Santos worked a full count walk and swiped second, moving on to third on Jeter Ibarra’s ground out to first, driving Jaxon Byrd, LBC’s third pitcher of the night, from the mound. Tristan Moore drove Jonathan Kozasky’s second offering into right field for a single that brought Santos home with the tying run, Allgeyer then walked on a full count, moving Moore into scoring position. Nick Leehey’s fly to right was deep enough to allow Moore to reach third. He scored from there on an error by second sacker Roche.
Thursday the 23rd rolled in, and the Ballers just kept rolling along.
The game began with a celebrity start on the mound for Long Beach. He was their pitching coach, Jerome Williams, who had pitched for the San José and San Francisco Giants, not to mention the Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America Including Barrow, Alaska. He faced four batters, walked one, struck out one, and retired his two other adversaries on ground outs.
I still think that Shoot Outs at the KO Corral are an abomination, but they bother me less when the Ballers win them. That’s what they did on Thursday. Neither team was able to send its best candidate to the plate. I say “best candidate” rather than “slugger” because it’s one thing to hit a home run against someone who’s trying to get you out; it’s another thing to hit a batting practice lob out of the park. We don’t know exactly what Cobb’s condition is, but we know he was unavailable on this ocassion. Oakland suffered another fright when Nick Leehey left the game in the top of the third after he fouled a pitch off his left foot. But he was back in action in Oakland the next day, pinch hitting for Tyler Rogers, although he was listed officially—thanks to the vagaries of the PBL’s tie breaker rules—as a catcher.
The Coast’s slugger Matthew Bardowell also was on the IL. Manager Miles sent Cam Bufford to the plate to take Oakland’s first post game swings. Nada. Troy Percival went with power hitting rookie Easton Jones. Zilch. Round two featured Jeter Ibarra, still leading the PBL in HR’s. Nothing. Ditto for Cooper Vest. Then came round three. Tristan Moore went to the plate for Oakland. The third time was the charm; it was Moore’s third game as a pro. His one “home run” bested Long Beach’s Jacob Jablonski’s two near misses.
Robert K. Fitts, has published an interesting article in the latest, Spring 2026, issue of the Baseball Research Journal, titled “How William “Big Chief” Watkins Began His Career as ‘a Japanese.’” After relating one of Watkins’ performances in 1905, he comments, “All the newspapers agreed that it was a sensational game ‘replete with lively hitting, speedy base running and good and bad fielding.’” Kind of like the game I’m commenting on right now.
Oakland Ballers (2-7,24-33) 010 053 010 10 14 0
Long Beach Coast (7-2,44-13) 060 022 000 10 10 4
There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in the third round of knockout innings.
The bus ride back to the East Bay still was six hours long; but they were more pleasant than they’d been on the previous two journeys.
The flame that was kindled in Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Long Beach, spluttered in Thursday’s nine frame draw, and recovered in the three round KO inning victory that followed it, finally burst into full glow on Friday, July 24, when the Bosie Hawks succumbed to the Ballers’ offense and, more notably, the superb mound work of Griffin Smith.
Boise Hawks (6-4, 29-29) 010 000 000 1 4 0
Oakland Ballers (3-7,25-33) 030 003 10x 7 11 0
Winning pitcher: Griffin Smith (1-4) Losing pitcher: Humberto Vela (0-2)
Time: 2:19 Attendance: 1,851
Not only was Smith’s performance only the second complete game thrown in the short , two and a half year history of the Pioneer Baseball League, but it was remarkable in light of the righty’s pregame record of 0-4, 11.32. Smith’s won-lost totals now art 1-4, and he’s lowered his ERA to a far from respectable, even for the PBL, 9.79. Jeremiah Begora’s leadoff four bagger in the second accounted for the only run scored against him.
Michael O’Hara, the hero of ’25 championship game, was welcomed as a prodigal son before the game. The fellow feeling lessened when he was announced as the beer batter. (He went one for four and was spared the infamy of a strike out).
Collura, Allgeyer, and Bufford, first, second, and third in the batting order, had multi-hit nights for the B’s, with two each. Collura and Buffford hit a double apiece, and Noah Blythe, Esai Santos,, T.J. Rogers and Brendan O’Sullivan also contributed a two bagger. The last two can play short, but they’re a long way from being able to fill the void left by Cobb. Nor were the Ballers free of self inflicted pain; Allgeyher ran into a final out in the bottom of the second.
On Saturday, July 25, the Ballers were far from the dominant team they’d been the night before. It took a two run homer in the bottom of the ninth to force a KO inning, in which Bufford’s bp fence clearing shot surpassed Wyatt Grant’s fruitless attempts at one and allowed the Oaklanders to snatch a precarious victory from the jaws of defeat.b
Bosie Hawks (6-5,29-30) 102 000 005 8 10 0
Oakland Ballers (4-7,26-33) 060 000 002 8 10 1
There were no winning or losing pitchers. Oakland won in first round of the KO inning, 1-0..
It was only a matter of time before the law of gravity would assert itself, and it asserted itself on the beautiful afternoon of Sunday, July 26, when the Ballers let a fourth inning four run lead skip away from them until they were trailing the Hawks 6-4 after seven and a half frames.
They narrowed the gap to 6-5 on Esai Santos’s tenth home run of the season only to see it widen to 7-5 when Julio Rosario, recently signed and missing from the list of transactions I gave at the beginning this column, came in to pitch in the top of the ninth.
He struck out Austin Folds, and retired Darryl Jackson on a ground out to third, but then walked Ethan Underwood, who stole second and scored on a double to left by Ryan Recio. In the bottom of the ninth, Jeter Ibarra increased his league leading home run count to 25 to close the gap to one run. But there already were two outs, and Leehey fanned for the final out of the game and the Ballers’ four game winning streak.
Bosie Hawks (7-5,38-38) 100 012 021 7 11 0
Oakland Ballers (4-8,26-34) 011 200 011 6 11 0
Winning Pitcher: Cameron Witte (1-0) Losing Pitcher: David Thomas (0-2)
Time:3:03 Attendance: 1,922
The Ballers’ brief winning streak that ended Sunday, brief as it was, is a hopeful sign. They will need to resume their winning ways and string together more stretches in which they come out on top over at least as many consecutive contests. No lead is safe in the Pioneer Baseball League, and I wouldn’t bet against a Ballers’ comeback that gets them into the playoffs, especially if Tremayne Cobb recovers soon.
The Ballers will take on the Yolo-Sutter Freebirds in Maryville at 7:05 tonight, Tuesday, through Thursday, and then return home for a Friday night game on July 31, which will beGrateful Dead Night. They have released this announcement to explain how special that night will be:
What started as an April Fool’s joke became one of the most requested ideas in Oakland Ballers history. On July 31, that joke becomes reality when the Oakland Ballers take the field as the Oaksterdam Blazers at Raimondi Park. The game marks a historic first in professional baseball, as the Ballers become the first professional team to partner with and celebrate the legal cannabis industry during a live game.
The on-field uniforms will feature the Oaksterdam Blazers name and will not include cannabis imagery or paraphernalia.
Game time on Friday will be 6:35. The game times and promotions for the two weekend games will be 4:35 for Public Transit Night (Ride The Rally) on Saturday and 1:05 for Soak The Town Sunday / First Responders Day on Sunday.
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