Colorado Springs Sky Box – Sports Radio Service

The Oakland Ballers walked off with a huge win over the Colorado Springs Sky Sox at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Fri July 25, 2025 (Oakland Ballers photo)

Colorado Springs (2nd half: 6-4, 2025: 15-42) 000 010 010 2 8 1

Oakland (2nd half: 5-5, 2025:43-15) 720 300 11x 14 16 2

Time: 2:48

Attendance: 2,82

Friday, July 25, 2025

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–The Oakland Ballers Thursday night debacle must have been some sort of shock therapy for any complacency tour hometown heroes might have felt on having clinched the home field advantage in all the games they’ll play in the September postseason playoffs.

The drubbing they took last night served as shock therapy for Saturday night’s overwhelming victory of their erstwhile tormentors. The B’s scored early and often, amassing 14 runs in their crushing over the Colorado Springs Sky Sox.

Zach St. Pierre with a little help from three of his friends in the bullpen held the visiting Sky Sox to a pair of tallies.

I often think of a baseball game as a play that, like Caesar’s Gaul, is divided into three parts, each of which contains three scenes. Occasionally there’s an epilogue, which in the case of the Pioneer Baseball League consists of the Knock Out Inning, a peculiarity that often yields an anti-climactic and arbitrary ending. Videlecut, last Tuesday night at Raimondi Park.

Friday night’s performance in West Oakland was something new and completely different. It began with a scene of massive destruction and just kept rolling along until the Ballers had wiped out the Sky Sox, 14-2.

The hosts made ten plate appearances in the bottom of the first, scoring seven runs on five hits against Johann Castillo, the visitors’ starting and losing pitcher, who is the league leader in innings pitched. He lasted five frames Friday night after throwing 127 pitches, to be followed by a trio of relievers, each of whom hurled an inning, with only one of them, Maykol López, emerging unscathed. All told, the beleaguered Sky Sox mound corps threw 191 pitches.

However decisive the Ballers’ triumph was, there was a continuous awareness among the crowd of 2,821 paid attendees that this was a team that blew a six run lead in the ninth inning of its previous encounter with the one it was massacring. The B’s did, after all, make two errors tonight, one of which allowed the Sox to score an unearned run against Sean Kelby in the eighth.

Zach St. Pierre, pinch runner par excellence, held the Sky Sox to one run on five hits, in his six innings of work. His eight strikeouts were a season’s high for him. Tanner Shields, in his first appearance at Raimondi didn’t allow any runs to Colorado Springs and struck out two of their batters but also surrendered a hit and unleashed a wild pitch.

Every batter in the Oakland lineup got at least one hit. Danny Harris and Tyler Lozano, newly returned from the injured list, got three apiece; Tremayne Cobb, Esai Santos, Nick Leehey, two. Santos and Harris hit doubles; Leehey, a triple, his first professional three bagger; and Cobb, Lozano,and Buggs went yard.

The rest is silence.

The tumult and the shouting will resume Saturday afternoon, at 4:35, preceded by a celebration of Native American culture.

Colorado Springs Sky Sox (2nd half:4-3, season:13-41) 010 210 100 5 11 2

Oakland Ballers (2nd half:5-2,season : 42-23) 000 210 002 4 3 2

Will the real Daniel Harris please stand up? Daniel Harris the trumpet player of the national anthem met Oakland Ballers second baseman Daniel Harris before Tue Jul 23, 2025 game at Raimondi Field against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (photo by the Oakland Ballers)

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–You come away from a game like the Ballers’ slovenly trouncing of the faltering peripatetic squad from northern Colorado on Tuesday night, exalted by the thrill of victory but feeling a trifle dirty because what you’d attended wasn’t a drama but a farce. (I admit that there’s a lot to be said for farces, but why quibble?)

You return to Raimondi Park this pleasant Wednesday evening prepared for more low comedy and, of course, a happy ending, and, to your surprise, Colorado springs back and defeats the hometown crew, 5-4, in a nailbiter that ends with the potential tying and winning runs on the corners and what looks like a wrongly called third strike after your team has exhausted its challenges.

As the Cuban saying has it, lo único que sabemos de la pelota es que es redonda y viene en caja cuadrada, all we know about baseballs is that they’re round and come in a square box.

How are we to explain this sudden change of outrageous fortune? A good deal of credit goes to Chase Martínez, the Sky Sox’ starting and winning pitcher. He hung on for six innings, in which he threw 112 pitches and gave up only two hits.

This accomplishment was tarnished by one of them having been a two run dinger by Darryl Buggs in the fourth, which accounted for half of the Ballers’ total run production of four, three of which, all earned, were charged to Martínez. Nowadays, this is considered a quality start at all levels of play. In the context of the Pioneer Baseball League, this is the stuff of Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn at Candlestick Park.

Three Sky Sox relievers, Joe Kinsky, Ryan Velázquez, and Alaín López, who got the save (his third) held Oakland to one run (an unearned tally against Lopez) and one hit (an eighth inning double by Jake Allgeyer off of Veláquez).

Casey Stengel, whose managerial talents led the 1948 Oakland Oaks to thePacific Coast League pennant, observed, “Good pitching always beats good hitting and vice versa,” and the Sky Sox did some pretty good hitting Tuesday night.

Seven of their nine batters got hits, and the two that didn’t walked three times between them. One of them, ex-Baller Marques Titialii got free passage to first twice in four plate appearances. Christian Hall went three for five and almost duplicated his namesake and fellow first sacker Christian Almanza’s Tuesday night feat of hitting three homers. Two of his three hits went yard.

In contrast, the only Oakand hit I haven’t already mentioned was Tremayne Cobb’s leadoff two bagger in the first frame. The Curse of the Leadoff Double refuses to die.

Reed Butz started for the Ballers and took the loss, his second against seven wins. He surrendered four runs, three of them earned, in 4-1/3 innings on the mound, during which he threw 86 pitches. Two of the seven hits he allowed were homers, and he logged four strikeouts against three walks.

Adam Bogosian followed Butts and kept Colorado Springs off the board for 1-2/3 innings,allowing just one hit. Gabe Tanner pitched the seventh and eighth. He gave up the deciding run in the first of those two frames. It came on Hall’s second tatter of the game. James Colyer kept Oakland’s hopes alive by shutting down the Sox on one hit while striking out two in the top of the ninth.

The line score provides a guide to the game’s scoring sequences and the B’s attempts to make do with a stymied offense.

Be prepared for more interesting turns of events starting Thursday, evening at 6:35. The first 500 fans will receive a limited edition En Vogue commemorative cup.