Tag: Modesto Roadsters

Follow the bouncing Oakland Ballers weekly report: Ballers take two games from Modesto Roadsters; plus more news

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Oakland Ballers were happy to erase a six run deficit against the Modesto Roadsters at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Fri Jul 10, 2026 (Oakland Ballers X photo)

Monday, July 13, 2026

Oakland, CA

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–This past week was almost Dickensian for the Ballers; it came close to being the worst of times and the best of times, sometimes at the same time. The team’s You Tube channel frequently reminded us that the Pioneer Baseball League’s standings would be reset on July 14, that is, Tuesday. Meanwhile, the team put together a series of heartening wins that indicated that it just might have regained its ability to bounce back from blown leads. That, too, was ambivalent; although the B’s took two games in row from the respectable Modesto Roadsters, their most resounding victories were over the downtrodden Yolo-Sutter Freebirds.

Things were different in Oakland on July 7th   than they had been in Modesto the previous week. It was cold when the game started, and, although it warmed up in the middle innings, it was cold again at the end. The Ballers not only held their own, but didn’t they fall behind until the top of the seventh, and they drew even in the bottom half of the frame. One inning later, and they pushed the winning runs home to send the crowd home happy.

Modesto Roadsters (26-17)    000 000 300   3   7    0

Oakland Ballers (18-25)         001 010 12x   5  10   1

Winning pitcher: Langston Burkett (2-1)   Losing pitcher: Preston Kelly (0-2)

Time:2:41   Attendance: 2,512

Charlie Hurley started on the mound for the home team and threw an excellent six innings of two hit ball, allowing only a couple of runs, only one of which was earned. He left with two on and no outs, so the unearned run that came as a result of Tremayne Cobb’s rare throwing error while Valek Cisneros was on the bump; was charged to Hurley. In any case, in the hitter friendly Pioneer League and the hitter friendlier Raimondi Park, starts like Hurley’s are a rare occurrence.        Missed opportunities and errors like Cobb’s, which cost the B’s their three run lead two thirds of the way through the contest, show that the Ballers can be, and frequently are, their own worst enemies.

Speaking of errors, a friend and reader of mine pointed out an error I made in last week’s column; I hadn’t pointed out the connection between the PBL’s franchise player rule and Cole Percival’s being the son of Long Beach manager Troy Percival. Cole is the Coast’s franchise player. I forgot that the irony of my mental tone of voice and pausing as I wrote the piece wouldn’t migrate to the written page unless explicitly I put it there.

It was uncomfortably cold at the ballpark on the eighth, with the mercury showing 61o at game time and 56o when Conner Smith took a called third strike for the final out of the night.

Modesto Roadsters (27-17)    200 212 822    11 13  0

Oakland Ballers (18-26)         002 100 130      7 13  1

Winning pitcher: Corbin Talley (2-1)   Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith (0-3)

Time: 3:14   Attendance: 1,448

Oakland had managed to overcome Modesto’s early lead of 2-0 in the third. When Cobb stole second standing up, the Roadster starter Corbin Talley’s inability to hold runners on base became evident, and after Esai Santos walked, he and Cobb pulled off a double steal that netted their team a pair of run runs when Noah Blythe drove them in on a two bagger to left center. But the Ballers’ bullpen couldn’t corral the Roadsters, who scored in every frame after the third on their way to the win.

In other Wednesday developments, the Ballers announced that they had traded southpaw starter C.J.  Blowers and a player to be named later to the Florence Y’alls of the Frontier League in exchange for portside hurler Ahmad Harajli and a PTBNL. Before the game began, the B’s signed right handed pitcher Brock Mayer fresh out of Cal State Fullerton, where he had struck out 27 opponents in 31 innings and posted an ERA of 5.52. He managed to get credit for two saves. The Roadsters knocked him around in the top of the sixth, getting at him for two runs on two hits in a third of an inning.  In an intraleague transaction, the B’s obtained the services of Billings outfielder Demias Jimmerson, who was batting .422 with an OPS of 1,170 in 22 games for the Mustangs at close of day. Oakland will send a player to be named later to Billings.

The cold, clear night of July 9th didn’t take anyone by surprise; the Ballers’ hot bats did, Oakland’s offense more than offset a sub-mediocre start by Hunter Day (four runs, all earned, in 4-1/3 innings)  combined with a excellent relief work by Jake Villar, Valek Cisneros, and Brady Chavez (no runs and only one hit over the 3-2/3 frames the trio was on the bump) made the home run Austin Balentine surrendered to Bryce Cannon in the visitors’ ninth a futile symbolic gesture. The weather did, however, reduce the moderately sized attendance of 1,416 to a few hundred hard core celebrants.

Modesto Roadsters (27-18)    001 300 001     5   10   2

Oakland Ballers (19-26)         307 080 10x    19  15   0

Winning pitcher: Jake Villar (1-0)    Losing pitcher: Anthony Díaz (1-3)

Time: 2:55   Attendance: 1,416   

The no-contest was not without its moment of PBL piquancy. When Captain J.T, Snow sent Ethan Roark to the mound to start the home fourth, the Roadsters’ manager and Aaron Miles, his Ballers counterpart, had a conversation in front of the visitors’ dugout that lasted long enough for the press box to ask the umpires over PA system to confirm the name of the new hurler’s name. My guess is that the confusion was the failure of the league’s website to publish a roster that listed Roark on it. By the way, I don’t sit in the press box. My credentials give me some advantages, like early entry and exemption from inspection of the containers I carry, but the free seating they allow is in the front row of the left field bleachers, from which you’re lucky if you can follow 30% of the action., so I pay my way in.. An inning after the mysterious summit meeting, home plate umpire Harrison Silverman ejected Snow for the language he used to protest the reversal of the fair ball call on what would have been Max Handron’s lead off home run. From where I sat, the ball looked foul.

The Ballers jumped ahead early and never looked back. Cobb started things with a 405 foot blast over the left center field fence on a two and one pitch to lead off the bottom of the first. He drove in another two runs with his second dinger of the night in the third. He ended up with four RBI
 in his five plate appearances. The Ballers’ shortstop is a beautiful fielder, and this was the second time this year he’s hit more than one round tripper in a game. It makes me wonder why no major league organization has plucked him out of the ranks of the PBL.

The B’s eight tallies in the sixth put the game on ice, a rare occurrence in the it’s not over ‘til it’s over Pioneer circuit. The highlight of the episode was Jaden Collura’s grand slam into the Ballers’ bullpen. One inning later, Jeter Ybarra gilded the lily with his league leading 19th four bagger of the season.

On Friday the tenth, the Ballers, having bounced back from their humiliating road trip by beating up on Modesto’s  big bullies, besting them in back to bat battles, went on to beat up on the little bullies of Marysville by besting the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds, née Yolo High Wheelers, in an ugly contest to see which team could shoot itself in the foot most frequently and still score more than the other. The umpiring crew made its contribution to this infuriating yet strangely gripping comedy of errors, which was followed by a Star Wars themed drone show.

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (15-31)           000 070 101             9  14  5

 Oakland Ballers (20-26)                    000 114 202           10   9   3

Winning pitcher: Langston Burkett (3-1)    Losing pitcher:TristanWolf (2-3)

Time: 3:20   Attendance: 2,947

The game started out as a scoreless pitchers’ duel until Cobb—there he goes again—— broke the tie in the home half of the fourth by jumping on a 3-0 offering from starter Anthony Silvas and sending it over the left field fence. The Ballers let that brief advantage fall from their hands like the proverbial hot potato. Aided by errors by starting pitcher Michael Riley, Esai Santos in center, and by Ybarra, seven Freebirds crossed the plate in the top of the fifth.  Zach Chamizo’s two run homer to left center off Riley was the blow that sent Riley to the showers.

Down 7-1, the Ballers clawed their way back into contention with Nick Leehey’s homer to left in their half of the inning and, after Connor Godwin replaced Mayer on the mound in the seventh, Yuba-Sutter pushed another run with a double by Isaac Núñez, whose name wasn’t published in the Freebird roster at any time during the series. Ybarrra’s two out single allowed the B’s to score two unearned runs in the bottom of that inning. The Ballers, in 2025 fashion, had tied the score at eight.

Number 0 Langston Burkett had only to hold the Freebirds scoreless for one inning to guarantee at least a KO round for Oakland. But he surrendered a down the line double to left by Jordan Donahue and an infield single by Diego Aragón to end that pipe dream.

But this was Star Wars Night, and the fans got a story book ending. Tristan Wolf took over mound duties for  Y-S. Jake Allgeyer singled to center, and Brandon  O’Sullivan pinch ran for him. Collura walked. Ybarra singled to left and took second on Josh Phillips’s error, Collura moved on to third, and, most important, O’Sullivan came home with the tying run. Wolf gave Noah Blythe a free pass to load the bases and set up a force out at home. The tactic worked, or would have, if the Yuba-Sutter defense weren’t as porous as it proved to be. Paul Winland grounded to first baseman Andrew Kirchner, who had trouble handling the ball and then unleashed a wild heave somewhere in the direction of home. Collura crossed the plate, and the Ballers had justified bay area native Vernon “Lefty” Gómez’s dictum, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

Unbeknownst to the celebrating fans leaving the ballpark on Saturday, the Ballers had committed a public relations error that would override Sunday’s on field action and cause confusion, tension, and ill will during the game.

Fairly early  on Saturday afternoon , rumors began to circulate in the stands about the next day’s game being only seven innings long.  When I got home, I asked AI on google how long the Sunday game would be, and the answer was nine innings. I then searched google for “oakland ballers seven inning game,” and came up with this post from Instagram that had appeared sometime between the fourth and sixth inning or thereabouts:

⚾ We’re trying something new this Sunday: a 7-inning game.

Many families head home after the 7th inning anyway, so we’re testing a format that fits. You’ll still get all your Sunday Family Day favorites—kids run the bases, player autographs, and more.

Tell us what you think! 💚

The fans did tell the Ballers what they thought, and it wasn’t pretty. As a result, the team made a passing reference on the PA to this game being a full nine inning one.

The idea of a seven inning game is neither preposterous or unprecedented. Many minor league teams play double headers of nine and then seven frames. Major League Baseball played seven inning games during the 2020 covid season. But to announce this at a time when ticket holders had no chance to change their plans, and to announce it, not on the Ballers’ website, not on the Pioneer Baseball League’s website, not in direct communication with ticket holders,  season ticket holders, or investors was an outrageous public relations blunder, a possibly unwitting show of disrespect to all the people the Ballers have worked so hard and so successfully to build as a loyal fan base. Investors have an elected fan representative on the team’s board of directors. Some of the fan response to the green heart emoji was that in the past their representative was nowhere to be found.

Several season ticket holders in Section A had bought additional front row seats to celebrate family occasions and transferred their usual seats to friends. Others, who had gone on vacation, also had given friends their usual seats. At least one recipient of a seat in Section A was directed to General Admission when he presented his bar code at the entry. When some of these transferred or retained but unused seats remained empty, fans in other parts of the section rushed in to fill them, often blocking the view of paying season ticket  holders. A family of three blocked my view; every time their five-year-old child did something that required the mother’s attention, the tall father would change his seat, forcing me to move back and forth three and four times each half inning for three whole frames. Try doing that while keeping score, taking notes, following the action, and using a cane. He expressed outrage when I asked him to please not change his seat more than once an inning. I’m reporting this not just to release my anger and frustration but also to give an idea of just one of the ripples that resulted from the Ballers precipitous “experiment.”

But it wasn’t really an experiment, or at least not an ethical one. That would have required informed consent. And there was a harmless way to meet the requirements of the “[m]any families [who] head home after the 7th inning anyway”: they could  just come late. How many PBL games are decided in the first three innings, anyway? And, if these fans don’t care to see nine innings of play, what would they lose by seeing innings seven through nine instead of one through three?

Other questions remain. Was this soi-dissent experiment sanctioned by the Pioneer Baseball League? How would a seven inning game affect the league-wide statistics?

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (15-33)            030 300 001      7 11 0

Oakland Ballers (22-26)                     300 120 001      7 10 2

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in first knock out round. Yuba Sutter HRs: Josh Phillips, 3. Oakland HRs: Tremayne Cobb, 4.

Time: 3:06   Attendance: 2,014

Although the line score shows the game as a tie, it was a win for the home team, a win that followed classic ’25 Ballers’ pattern: blow early lead to tie, then fall behind, catch up,fall behind, tie, and win. Not that the their performance was free of wasted opportunities, among them rally killing double plays, the use of celebrity roster cricketeer Liam Plunkett, who had pitched for Oakland earlier in the season, as a pinch hitter in the fourth,  rookie mistakes, as when Ybarra, who could have kept a slow grounder to first from rolling foul by taking a step or two towards home and securing an out. It was nice that the Ballers won the shoot out at KO Coral, but, to return to the team’s clumsy public relations, would we have had a knock out round in a seven inning game? (A negative response might have been a point in favor of a curtailed contest).

About the only consolation available to fans of the PBL’s 2025 champs was that they didn’t have to wait ‘til next year, but only ‘til tomorrow, July 14th, when the second half of the PBL’s split season begins and hope that Bastille Day marks the start of a revolutionary resurgence of Baller performance that will qualify the team for the league championship play off in September.

We should, however, moderate our enthusiasm; the resetting of the standings on Bastille Day means that the Ballers’week long success was achieved in what was, effectively, exhibition games.

To get an idea of what hoops the Ballers will have to jump through to become repeat league champions, I offer this outline of the play off process:

The first half champion from each division plays the second half champion. 
The second place teams in each division do the same.

·        

·The teams with the best overall records in the first half of the season get homefield advantage in the first round. 

·        

    The first round winners advance to the best of five Championship Series.

The tie breaking criteria are, in order:

Head-to-head record.

      Least runs allowed per game in the half in question half.

Best run differential per game in the half in question

The Ballers schedule for the coming week is

Tuesday, July 14: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Wednesday, July 15: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Thursday, July 16: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Friday, July 17: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 6:35 pm (World Cup Night)

Saturday, July 18: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 4:15 pm (Ballermnia)

Sunday, July 19: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 1:05 pm (A Celebration of Rickie Henderson).

Enjoy the games! And the controversies.  I mean that seriously).

Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow The Bouncing Ballers 7/5/26 and 7/6/26

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Oakland Ballers outfielder Noah Blythe (27) take a big cut at the plate against the visiting Yuba Sutter Freebirds on Sat Jul 4, 2026 at Raimondi Field in Oakland (Oakland Ballers photo)

Monday, July 6, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–When, on June 28th, the Ballers closed out their home stand with back to back wins over the team formerly known as the Yolo High Wheelers but now sporting the moniker Yuba-Sutter Freebirds, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that the Raimondi Rowdies had recovered the knack of flirting with disaster but going to bed with success. But when the Pioneer Baseball League resumed play this past Tuesday, June 30th, the Ballers fell back into their newly acquired bad habit of ceding the last and deciding comeback to their opponent. 

That opponent was the Long Beach Coast, a new entrant in the PBL’s newly named and restructured South Division of the Pioneer Baseball League. As a new creation, the Coast don’t have an old name they could discard, but they manage to have an alias, the Regulators, which they often spring on their opponents. Whatever name the tenants of Blair Field assume, they also have a hell of a lot of talent. When the July 4th week end was over, they led the 12 team circuit with a won-lost record of 32-10, a half a game ahead of the runner up Billings Mustangs.

The Ballers, on the other hand, were like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead; when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid. Milton Berle changed that to “when she was bad, she was popular.” That’s not the case with the Ballers anywhere outside of their home territory. as the three digit attendance figures for several of their road games indicate, but there’s no denying that they’ve been playing some pretty horrid baseball recently. It showed in the line score.for the last day of June

Oakland Ballers (16-22)                     100 400 101      7  11  1

Long Beach Coast (30-8)                   000 313 001      8   9   1

Winning pitcher: Zach Voelker (2-2)   Losing pitcher: Matthew Maloney (1-1) 

Time: 3:12   Attendance: 1,984

Valek Cisneros, who was winner of the B’s previous game, in which they had defeated Yuba-Sutter in Oakland, opened the door for the Long Beach victory on Tuesday. He entered the game in the sixth inning, trying to protect a 5-4 lead and allowed three runs on a hit, two walks, and a wild pitch. To his credit, only one of those runs was earned, but that was enough to tie the score at five. The unearned tallies put Oakland fell behind, 7-5. A Conner Smith homer to left closed the gap to a single run in the top of the seventh. 

The Ballers almost pulled off when of their vaunted comebacks when, with two out and the bases empty, in the top of the ninth, Jeter Ybarra blasted a 2-0 pitch over the left field wall to knot the score at seven.

It was up to Matthew Mahoney, coming in to relieve Connor Goodwin, to hold the Coast in check and take us to a knock out round. He walked Cuba Bess on four pitches. Jaylen Edmonds ran for Bess and promptly stole second. Jacob Jablonski walked on the ninth pitch of a full count walk. Anthony Mata lay down a sacrifice bunt, fielded by Mahoney. This text book move allowed Johnny Pappas’s sacrifice fly to left to score the winning run of this too  little, too late disappointment.

The new month saw a variation on the theme with which the old month had ended. Oakland made a valiant comeback attempt that fell just short and lost to Long Beach, 8-7. A detail of the line score rubs Long Beach salt water in the Ballers’ wounds; they outhit their hosts, 15-1.

Oakland Ballers (17-2)              001 100 122           7  15  1

Long Beach Coast (30-8)           015 020 00x           8   5   1

Winning pitcher: Jake Dixon (2-0)   Losing pitcher: Charlie Hurley (1-3)

Time: 3:14   Attendance: 736.


It was close, but no cigar. Cole Percival relieved Steve Odorica after he had walked Allgeyer to open the visitors’ ninth. A Collura double and Ybarra single, and a passed ball with Brendan O’Sullivan at bat with two down allowed the B’s to draw tantalizingly close, but O’Sullivan fanned, stranding Ybarra on second

There were some interesting personnel notes to this night’s happening. One of the few portions of the PBL’s rule book that are available to the public are those pertaining to eligibility. One of those rules authorizes each team to carry a franchise player. The requirements for such a designation are that the player

·       Must have previously played at least two full years in the PBL.

·       Must have finished the immediately prior season on that specific club’s roster.

·       Can only be tagged as a Franchise Player for a maximum of one year.

·       Can serve in a player-coach capacity. 

Cole Percival, the reliever who almost blew the game in the ninth is the son of the Coast’s skipper, Troy Percival..

The other personnel item is that Oakland’s starting pitcher, Nick Bautista, who pitched decently by Pioneer League standards (two runs, both earned, on seven hits, two walks, and a hit batter in 4-2/3 innings, was traded by Oakland to Long Beach before the season began. For some reason, unknown to me, the trade was voided or never was consummated.

July 2nd  offered us a change from the couldof/wouldof spectacles of the two previous days, a complete baller meltdown. The Coast beat up on four Oakland pitchers to win, 14-1.  It was the reductio ad absurdum of a Ballers blown lead; the B’s led, 1-0, after 2-1/2 innings of play.

They never threatened again, making it easy for southpaw Garrett VanDeventer to throw the first complete game since the league was founded in 2024.           

The B’s hit into two double plays and blew several chances to turn them against Long Beach in the middle innings.

Oakland Ballers (16-23)         010 000 000      1   9  3

Long Beach Coast (31-8)       003 002 45x     14 10 1

Winning pitcher: Garrett VanDeventer (3-0)   Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith             (0-2)

Time: 2:37   Attendance: 1,089

The Oakland entourage returned home at about 10:00 the next morning, Friday, July 3, before moving on to a 7:11 start in Modesto that evening. At least they would have a legitimate excuse for a sloppy performance. And they did make play sloppy baseball, O’Sullivan let a double play ball pop out of his glove and hit third base umpire  Alan Walker cost only one run, but it set the tone for a team that already was in a slump, not having won a single game so far on this road trip.. That was the only error chalked up against the B’s, but  subsequent plays like Leehee’s failure to corral Santos’s perfect throw that turned what would have been the third out in the seventh into a double for 최병용 (that’s Byungyong Choi to you and me) are errors that don’t show up on the score sheet. Bradford’s misadventures in left during the wind tossed eighth were explicable because his recent role had been DH. Explicable or not, they had a lethal effect and sealed the Ballers eventual and seemingly inevitable doom. Neither his bumbling nor the exculpatory history behind it is a matter of statistical record.

Bad base running, like Cobb’s attempt to stretch a single in the fifth are costly self defeating mistakes but  are missing in action when you look at the box or line score.

Speaking of which, the grim line score went like this (note the early two run lead, that marks the kiss of death):

Oakland Ballers (16-24)                  200 010 000    3  9   1

Modesto Roadsters  (25-15)            013 000 03x    7 13  0

Winning pitcher: Anthony Díaz (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-1)

Time: 2:45   Attendance: 4,37

The Ballers’ 8-4 come from behind victory on Independence Day offered a glimpse of their ability to lose a lead and then regain it, raising hopes that, although long eliminated from the first half championship race, the team might come back and still qualify for the league crown with a second half surge. But it also demonstrated how damaging the squad’s sloppy play could be. Again, there were reasons for the sloppiness: Friday’s physically and emotionally exhausting game, the holiday’s  2:50 game time, and the 94o heat were challenges withwhich  both teams had to contend. The Ballers did it better.

Oakland Ballers (17-24)                100 210 022     8  15   2

Modesto Roadsters (25-16)           012 100 000     4   8    0  

Winning pitcher: Valek Cisneros (1-0)    Losing pitcher: Preston Kelly (0-1)

Tremayne Cobb once more led the Oakland attack, going three for five, including a home run to left on the second pitch of the game and an RBI double to center in the eighth episode. He hit another two bagger to center in the ninth. that one producing two runs. C.J. Blowers, the number one hurler in the Ballers rotation ,started the game for the B’s. As usual, he pitched decently by PBL standards, giving up four runs, all earned, on eight hits in 5-2/3 innings. He is the son of journeyman third baseman Mike Blowers, who played 129 games and hit .237 for or the Oakland Athletics (remember them?) in 1998.His moment  of glory in that lackluster season came on May 18, when he hit for the cycle against the White Sox. He went on to become the television commentator of the Seattle Mariners. Here’s a link to his contribution to baseball lore. It’s worth watching and listening to:. https://www.facebook.com/Mariners/videos/happy-birthday-to-mariners-broadcaster-mike-blowers-/1823433321474713/

The bottom of the sixth in the July Fourth game illustrates why frequent mistakes, whatever their circumstantial causes may be, have long run consequences. Valek Cisneros relieved Blowers with the Ballers hanging on to a 4-3 lead and a runner on first and one away. Osiris Johnson hit the ball to Brian O’Sullivan at third (remember him from the previous night’s fiasco?), and, instead the side being retired, Modesto now had the potential tying run in scoring position and the potential leading run on first. Cisneros fanned Justin Boyd and then made his own fielding error, putting both runners in scoring position. Cisneros then retired the dangerous Tyler Williams, who finished the day with a .362 batting average, on a seven pitch groundout to second..


When you can’t trust your fielders to do their job, you’ll try to strike out every batter you face, and that’s no way to do your job.  This time, Cisneros did his (if you forget about his own fielding lapse)), and Langston Burkett, who replaced him for the home half of the ninth, did his, and the Ballers survived to play a rubber game on Sunday, July 5.

They should have saved themselves the trouble. A game time of 11:00 in the morning of Sunday, July 5 and a temperature that reached into the 90s didn’t help, even though the Oaklanders had spent the night at Modesto’s Double Tree Hilton.

The game was such so long and lopsided that the official scorer didn’t bother to record the time of the final out or calculate the duration of the non contest.. (I found it by clicking on to the Ballers’ Youtube channel and checking the length of the broadcast).

Oakland Ballers (17-25)        000 003 001     4 14  0

Modesto Roadsters (26-16)   520 571 00x    20 22  0

Winning pitcher: Devyn Hernández (3-1,4.57)   Losing pitcher: Aiden Risse (1-5,4.51)

     Time: 3:40   Attendance: 455

Although Oakland’s offense managed only four runs, it did put together 14 hits. Modesto jumped ahead and never was headed off. All of Oakland’s runs were scored in two innings, three in the sixth and one in the ninth.

(Y)our battered Ballers hope to bounce back tomorrow, Tuesday the seventh, in the first of three more games against the Roadsters, this time in Raimondi Park.  As they always are on Tuesdays in Ballerland, the cheap seats go for two dollars.  The theme for this game is

“Immigrants: We Get the Job Done,” and the pin that the first 750 fans will receive looks like a grand addition to your collection (if you have one).

Game time is 6:35, the same as on the remaining weekday contests. That consistency might introduce a welcome element of stability for the Ballers as they try to regroup for the season’s second half, which will start in a week, on Tuesday, July 14.

June 29 Follow the Bouncing Ballers: A review of this week’s Oakland Ballers

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Oakland Ballers were thrilled to get a victory over the Yuba City Firebirds on Sun Jun 28, 2026 at Raimondi Park in Oakland (Oakland Ballers photo)

June 29 Follow the Bouncing Ballers

Monday, June 29, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Modesto, the home of the Ballers’newly minted regional rival in the South Division of the Pioneer Baseball League, has a long and honorable baseball tradition. Here’s a list of the professional teams, with their affiliations, that have called the city of health, wealth, and baseball 

Their home:

·       Modesto Reds (1946–1961)

o   Affiliations: St. Louis Browns, independent 

·       Modesto Colts (1962–1964)

o   Affiliations: Houston Colt .45s ]

·       Modesto Reds (1966–1974)

o   Affiliations: Kansas City Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals 

·       Modesto A’s (1975–2004)

o   Affiliations: Oakland Athletics 

·       Modesto Nuts (2005–2025)

o   Affiliations: Colorado Rockies, Seattle Mariners 

For most of that time, the California League, of which the variously named Modesto clubs were members member, bore the  rank of  High-A in the majors’ food chain.. It was demoted to just plain old A in 2021.  This had the effect of lowering the quality of minor league ball that fans from the East Bay could easily reach in San José and Stockton, as well as in Modesto, not to mention the quality of play available to local fans.  (Hang down your head, Bob Manfred.).

Here’s a link that lists some of the players who went from Stanislaus County to The Show:

. This poster may strike a nostalgic chord among old time Athletics fans.

The Roadsters play in what now is called Modern Woodman Field. Before that it was known as John Thurman Stadium, and, before that, Del Webb Field. It has a more spacious outfield with higher fences than Raimondi Park, and its winds generally are less favorable to long ball hitters than the ones that chill the air in West Oakland.21-1

In spite of this long baseball tradition and the Roadsters’ good won-lost record (21-15 as I write this), their attendance figures for the three game series with the B’s was 740, 625, and 853. Yes, the heat was extreme in Modesto, and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to West Sacramento (and you know what’s going on at Sutter Health Park) , but there are breezes are breezes at Modern Woodman Field, and the temperatures drop there  as the games progress or deteriorate, as the case may be.

Let’s start with the line score of the June 23rd contest.

Oakland Ballers (13-18)         005 000 003    8  12  0

Modesto Roadsters (18-13)     002 000 510   8   9    0

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in the first round of the KO inning; Tremayne Cobb (5).

Tyler Williams (2)

Time: 3:40   Attendance 740

The series opener (or, if you prefer, the fourth game of the home and home series that the Roadsters took, two games to one, at Raimondi followed a familiar pattern. The visiting Oaklanders jumped to a 5-0 lead in the top of the third. Modesto cut that to 5-2 in their third turn at the plate. C.J. Blowers went six inning and allowed only two runs, both earned, on five hits while striking out five, but he walked another quintet and unleashed a wild pitch.  All in.all, it was a good—outstanding in the context of the PBL—performance, and well above the righty’s usually level, as realize that his in-game ERA of 3.00 lowered his season’s ERA to 7.79. Valek Cisneros took the mound to start the frame and left it with his team trailing its hosts, 7-5. Langston Burkett fanned the first batter he faced before allowing a game- tying single to right by Justin Boyd that plated the inherited runner, Jacob Lojewski.The Ballers won the knock out inning in the first round, Tremayne Cobb’s five blasts besting Tyler Williams’s two. No matter who wins these carnival side shows, the knock out inning is an abomination.

No Ballers hit a real home run, but Esai Santos , Jaden Collura , Jeter Ybarra , and Davis Drewek

hit doubles, and Jaden Collura, and Davis Drewek had three games, and T.J. McKendrick got a pair of singles.

Modesto knotted the series on the night of Wednesday the 24th.

Oakland Ballers (14-18)         200  100 000    3   6  0 

Modesto Roadsters (19-13)    012  100 02x    6  10 0

Winning pitcher: Devyn Hernández (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Aidan “Risse (0-1)   Save: Johan     Castillo (1)

Time:  2:25   Attendance: 625

The Ballers treated their starting pitcher, Aidan Reese to an early 2-0 lead thanks to Jake Allgeyer’s four bagger to center with Santos on base. (He had struck out swinging but reached first on a passed ball), but the Roadsters revved their engine and made it to home in once in the the second, twice in the third, and another time in the fourth. Risse didn’t come out to the mound at the start of the home eighth; by then he had thrown112 pitches, only 70 of them strikes. Remember that any ball a batter lays wood on is counted as a strike, no matter how much it misses the zone by. Yet Risse walked only one batter and didn’t throw any wild pitches or hit any batters. Six of the outs he recorded came on fly balls; eight on grounders. Deven Hernández, who also lasted seven frames, and Johan Castillo, who was untouched in the last two innings, condemned Oakland to another blown lead loss.

Allgeyer’s shot in the first was the only round tripper for the Ballers, and Drewek, with two singles, was the only member of the squad to garner more than one hit.

On Thursday the 25th, the Ballers were presented with a repeat of the dilemma they had faced the previous Sunday, back home in West Oakland, a rubber match. They lost that game, part of the growing pains of their revamped roster. They lost again on Thursday.

Oakland Ballers (14-19)         100 000 000    1  10  2

Modesto Roadsters (20-13)    310 010 10x    6  10  2

Winning pitcher: Omar Serrano (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Charlie Hurley (0-1)  

Time: 2:40   Attendance: 853

It was another exercise in frustration. With a game time temperature of a sweltering 890, number two batter Esai Santos blasted a 437 foot homer into the depths beyond right center field. I won’t say that the B’s offense stopped there, but it sure did stall They left ten men on base, not counting the play that ended the first frame for Oakland. After Jaden Collura rounded first on a single, a throw from right fielder Justin Boyd to short stop Jacob Lojewski nabbed the Baller catcher. The play was scored as a pick off. Oakland batters went 0-9 with runners in scoring position.

The loss was pinned on Charlie Hurley, a fine name for a pitcher. It certainly beats Walker, although Hurley issued four of them in his five innings on the bump. He was succeeded by Hunter Day, making his Ballers debut. Before Oakland acquired him, he had pitched for the independent American Association Fargo-Moorehead RedHawks. He held Modesto to two hits, one of them a double, and a walk in his one inning stint. Jacob Petersheim, who was unimpressive in his debut on June 21st, was somewhat better in this game; the run he allowed in his two inning stint was unearned.

Back at 10th Wood, on Friday the 26th the B’s didn’t have to contend with a game time temperature of 89, as they had to the night before in Modesto. When home plate umpire Tony  Pratercalled “Play” at 6:35, the thermometer read  64o.. Nor did the Miles’ Militia have to face the powerhouse Roadsters. Instead, they were up against the Yolo-Sutter Freebirds, bearers of an 11-22 record and standing two places behind the B’s in the South Division. They weren’t playing to a near empty ballpark, either. The opponents had changed, but the Ballers’ still were their own worst enemies, snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory after what could have been a comfortable, if not overwhelming, first inning advantage of six runs. But Yuba-Sutter scored in every inning but the first, and Oakland was shut out, starting in the third and lasting through the eighth.

The crowd  of 1,878  dwindled as ballers couldn’t get out of their own way. An emblematic example of that distressing tendency occurred in the top of the sixth when Colusa made a wild throw to first on what would have been an inning ending 5-2-3 double play. That twin killing that wasn’t d could have provided some impetus to the faltering B’s once notable ability to overcome as well as to throw away imposing leads. They had entered the inning trailing 10-9. They left it behind trailing 14-9.

Once again, the line score outlines the disappointing facts.

Yuba Sutter Freebirds (12-22)            024 134 121   18  18  3

Oakland Ballers (14-20)                     621 000 002   11  11  3

Winning pitcher: Sean Wiese (2-0)   Losing pitcher: Dylan Delvecchio (0-1)

Time: 3:45  Attendance: 1,878 

But the Ballers did manage to pull off a public relations triumph. They signed Liam Plunkett, a one time star of British cricket who now plays in Major League Cricket, a league that features a streamlined version of the tradition British sport. They were able to do this because of a wrinkle in the PBL’s eligibility rules that permits each team to carry one on its roster who isn’t likely to advance in professional baseball but whose presence there will be a box office draw.You’ve got to love the PBL and its idiosyncratic rules, even if the league is selective about telling you what they are.

June 27, 2026 was a Saturday, and that meant a 4:35 first pitch. I hopoe the line score will raise your spirits.

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (12-23)           003  000 010   4   10  0

Oakland Ballers (15-28)                     100  100 03x   5    6   2

Winning pitcher: Michael Riley (2-1)   Losing pitcher: Corbin Barker (1-1) Save: Matthew Maloney (2)

Time: 2:36   Attendance: 1,921

The Ballers once more took an early lead, going ahead 1-0 in the first, only to give it up two innings later, when three Freebirds crossed the plate. But this time, the Ballers seemed to recover their 2025 mojo. Down 4-2 in after seven and a half innings, the Ballers had runners on first and second with one out against Brenton Thiels, who had relieved starter Chase Martínez an inning earlier. That caused Theis’s removal from the game brought Corbin Barker to the mound. He fanned Paul Winland on three pitches but walked Nick Lehey to clog the basepaths. Collura pinch hit for Davis Drewek. Collura drew a walk on a seven pitch  3-2 count,  bringing Ybarra, who had led off the inning with a single to center, home with the tying run and leaving the bases still FOB, Full of Ballers. Conner Smith whiffed, and there were two down. Cobb drew a walk, and Santos was hit by a pitch, which scored two runs and put the Ballers ahead, 5-4, before Allgeyer struck out to end the inning. 

Maybe something had clicked., because the Ballers came back to win Sunday’s 1:05 game with a ninth inning walk off that gave them the series and ended the week on a high note.

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (12-24)   310 000 060   10   9 1

Oakland Ballers (16-20)             000 131 303   11 13 2

Winning pitcher: Valek Cisneros (3-0)   Losing pitcher: Tristan Wolf (1-2)

Time: 2:48   Attendance:1,844

Jeter Ybarra, who had been one of the few bright spots in the Ballers’ disappointing first months, had been in a bit of funk recently. His fielding was mediocre, and his failure of hustle on the basepaths was glaring. He might have been playing through pain, although I’m not aware of any announcement to that effect. Whatever it was that that was bothering him isn’t affecting him now. He went three for three on Sunday the 28th. He went three for five, with a double, a home run, and a home run., He still is the league leader in that category, with15.

It seemed as if the B’s had slipped back into their lead blowing sink hole when they had recovered from a 4-0 disadvantage by scoring a run in the fourth, three in the fifth, another in the sixth, and three more in the seventh. But the Freebirds surged ahead, 10-8 with a six spot in the top of the eight. But Oakland had some last minute heroics left in them and came from behind to win in walk off fashion in the bottom of the ninth with Ybarra leading the charge. He led off with a single to right, Brandan O’Sullivan pinch ran for him, which might have been a signal that something physical had kept the B’s first sacker from running all out in the recent past.. Or it might have just been good tactics, given the PBL’s designated pinch hitter and pinch runner rules. In any case, it was an unnecessary move because Winland walked, and  Leehey drove an 0-1 pitch over the fence in left center to send the B’s fans home happy. Maybe, just maybe, they’ve turned the corner.

News surface recently about a lawsuit against the city of Oakland and their tenants, the Ballers, brought by the Ajor Property Group, for damages to their facility at 1661 20th St. The plaintiffs claimed that balls hit out of Raimondi Park have caused them at least $350,000 since its renovation in 2024. The Ballers have replied that they will make good any costs to the city incurred by the suit and admits that some damage has occurred. The team also maintains that many of the claims made by Ajor have not been verified. The property in question is next to the Prescott Market, home of several pre- and post-game festivities. The Market also has indoor plumbing, which is important to Ballers’ fans because replacement of the current port-a-potties in the ballpark has been delayed because the city has yet to approve the installation of real rest rooms in the venue.

That’s about all I know about the case.

The Ballers face a tough schedule this coming week. They’ll travel to Long Beach to face the second place Coast on the 30th  through July 2nd. Then it’s back to Modesto for the rest of the week.

That’s all for now.

Lewis Rubman covers the Oakland Ballers for http://www.sportsradioservice.com