Oakland Ballers Millikan Cements has a good shot at being the Pioneer League Pitcher of the Year (photo by the Oakland Ballers)
Oakland Ballers Weekly Report
Monday, September 8, 2025
By Lewis Rubman
What’s as rare as a day in June? A complete game in the Pioneer Baseball League is one possible answer. And the past week in Raimondi Park gave us some pretty rare pitching, including one or two complete games, depending on how you look at it, several stretches that cast doubt on the PBL’s fame as a hitter’s league, and a pitch for AI.
The Ballers opened their last home stand of the season last Tuesday, September 2nd, and in the process broke the PBL record for most wins in a season with 70. But it wasn’t Gabe Tanner, who notched his ninth victory against no defeats, who tossed the rarity.
That distinction went to Great Falls’ Brandon Moody, whose record fell to 2-5 after holding the B’s to two runs, both earned, on six hits on to two walks and a wild pitch, over the the eight innings in which they went to bat.
One of those hits was Davis Drewek’s two run blast over the center field fence with Esai Santos, who had walked, with one down in the top of the first. Tanner pitched six excellent innings, surrendering the Voyagers’ lone tally, which came on Emilio Corona’s solo shot into left field night.
James Colyer and Conner Richardson hit the visitors scoreless in the seventh and eighth, respectively, setting the scene for Connor Sullivan’s 19th save, which tied the league’s record in that category. It also was Aaron Miles’ 100th win as the Ballers’ manager.
The Voyagers got even on Wednesday evening, defeating their hosts, 6-3. The contest again featured some excellent mound work by the visitors.
Danny Galvan, their starter, gave up all of the Ballers’ runs in the first episode. TJ McKenzie led off with a walk, stole second, and scored on Cam Bufford’s one out single to right. Then Christian Amanza went yard to the opposite field. The B’s would not score again that night.
Galvan would get an out in the bottom of the sixth, followed by shutout frames by Mitchell Grannan (1-2/3 IP) and Nolan Pender, whose inning of work earned him his seventh save of the year. Thursday the fourth saw Noah Millikan hurl six shutout frames, which brought his streak of consecutive goose eggs up to 22.
It also improved his won-lost balance sheet to 7-1 and lowered his ERA to a most non PBL like 2.12. Bufford’s full count seventh inning four bagger made the speedy and versatile rookie the B’s sole member of the 20-20 club. Oh, and by the way, Oakland won, 7-2.
The week’s parade of powerful pitching proceeded apace on Friday the fifth. The Ballers’ pitching was powerful, but the game was called due to a power outage after six innings. Luke Short had held the Voyagers scoreless on three hits and a walk in that period, and Caleb Franzen was about to relieve him in top of the seventh, but I don’t think anyone saw him actually throw a pitch.
I know I didn’t, and the box score doesn’t show him as having done so. That leaves the question of whether or not Short should be credited with a complete game. In any case, it keeps pitching in the spotlight. Which is more than stanchions could do.
Oakland was ahead, 5-0, on homers by Lou Helmig and irrepressible Amanza and an RBI single by the multi-faceted Bufford, and that was the final score. No one I saw seemed unhappy with the result, especially since the night was turning cold.
Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle finally gave the Ballers some coverage when it printed, below the fold, a piece by Shayna Rubin, with the headline, “Manager Milles let AI take his job for the night.” Res ipsa loquitur.
The game itself was a squeaker which—you guessed it—was notable for the pitchers’ performances.Sam Lavin threw 119 pitches for Great Falls over seven innings and allowed the B’s only one run. It came in his last inning on the bump and was the result of a round tripper to left center by—yes, indeed—Cam Bufford.
Cam Cowan gave up an unearned run in the eighth, and Robert Kelley shut the B’s out in the ninth. The 161 pitches the Voyagers threw was hardly an elegant job, but they held powerful B’s to two runs over nine innings.
Reed Butz held Great Falls to four hits and a walk over seven scoreless frames. James Colyer gave up a hit and a walk in two thirds of an inning, and Connor Sullivan blew the lead by coughing up two earned runs on two hits, one of which was Kyle Schack’s homer with AJ Fritz, who had singled, on board.
That hardly seems like a vindication of the advice AI gave manager Miles. Rubin reported that he said that he would have used Sullivan to attempt the four out save if making the decision on his own. But do we need machines to tell us to make the mistakes we would have made without them?
Oakland won the game in the first knockout round. Bufford—who else—hit two home runs, which was all it took. It’s nice they won, but should games be decided by a crap shoot?
And that takes us to Sunday’s season finale. Would you believe a scoreless tie for eight innings, ending in a 2-1 Great Falls win? You’d better believe it, because that’s what happened. The Voyagers’ Nick Marshall went into the ninth without having let a single Baller cross the plate.
Seven Oakland hurlers had blanked Great Falls over eight innings before a sacrifice fly by Fritz and an RBI single by Corona off Zach St. Pierre, who had been lights out in the eighth, put the home town champions down, 2-0.
Dillon Tatum greeted Marshall by going yard to left, and that was it for the Voyagers’ starter, who had thrown 134 pitches and allowed only six hitters, including Tatum’s near equalizer, four free passes, and a hit batter. Wyatt Cameron fanned the three batters he faced to earn his eighth save.
The semi-final round of the playoffs will begin at Raimondi Park at 6:35 this coming Thursday evening, when the Ballers will face the Ogden Raptors in the first of a best two out of three game series. The two teams will meet again in West Oakland on Friday, and, if a third game is necessary, tickets will go on sale immediately after the game ends, for the winner take all shot at advancing to the championship round. That game would be played on Saturday, also at 20th and Wood.
And that was the week that was.
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