Game 15 Recap: Knocked Out
Ballers Collapse in Ninth, Lose 10-10 Tiebreaker in Knockout 4-3
by Joe Horton
KALISPELL, MT—For eight innings, the Oakland Ballers had fixed their two most pressing issues: early pitching and consistent offense. In the bottom of the ninth, it all came undone. And despite three homers from Tremayne Cobb in the B’s first knockout round of the season, the team was swept in Kalispell when Glacier’s Jake Millan hit his fourth ball out of the park and into the 10pm halflight of northern Montana.
Never has a 3-0 deficit in the first inning felt so good. After falling behind 6-1 and 5-0 in the first two games, Glacier’s three-run opening frame seemed manageable, especially after the Ballers quickly started piling up hits to the tune of 11 for the game.
Starter C.J. Blowers again proved a stopper for Oakland; after surrendering the early runs he shut down the Glacier bats until the sixth, when he was pulled for Langston Burkett. Burkett made a heroic attempt at a tag at home while striking out two before being relieved by Valek Cisneros. Cisneros pitched another two innings of near-perfect ball; on the season his ERA stands at a sublime zero. Crucially, B’s pitching surrendered only five walks total on the night compared to the 28 they’d given up in the first two games. With more competitive pitches in the zone, they had Glacier batters chasing rather than sitting back.
The offense also came to play. Cobb had the biggest swing of the night, a double in the seventh plated three. But this was at last a team effort down the roster, as seven other Ballers knocked in a run. Oakland also entered the game drawing some of the fewest walks in the league, and tonight, seven players saw eight free passes.
The home crowd had thinned considerably by the ninth with the B’s up 10-6. But Braydon Nelson in to close gave up singles to Logan Beard and Carson Garner and a walk to Millan before a costly misplay and error in the outfield from Noah Blythe and T.J. McKenzie resulted in two balls dropping in and four Range Riders coming home.
“He drops the ball, he drops it!” was Gareth Kwok’s call in the booth; the eternal joy Oakland fans remember from another shock dropped ball flipped to misery here.
With the game tied at 10, the B’s entered their first knockout round of the year. Oakland chose their regular knockout batter Cobb, who despite Glacier fan heckling and ill-timed “home run” announcements on the PA, managed to swat three out of the park. (The B’s had not hit a homer in Glacier Bank Park this series until the knockout.) But with only 20-odd seconds left in his time, it was Millan’s fourth that sent the few Glacier fans who had stayed home happy.
Dispatches caught up with a visibly frustrated manager Aaron Miles after the game.
“We got a good start out of Blowers and we shit the bed at the end—sorry for using profane language—but we didn't catch the baseball in the outfield. We had two balls we could have caught. We didn't catch those,” Miles said. “We're doing everything you can to lose a baseball game when we should be winning them, and that's a problem.”
What will he tell the team ahead of a new series starting tomorrow in Great Falls?
“It was a good effort, but it ultimately it wasn't good enough, and we’ve got to regroup and figure it out.”
Blowers also talked about his strong start and his approach to keeping games competitive.
“Realistically, I’m just trying to give the guys a chance on offensive side of things. I’d really like to see another zero put up in the 6th inning, but the bats were able to pick it up for me in the end of it. With this [B’s] team, I really feel as long as we don't walk the house and we give our offense a chance to bang, we're going to win a lot of baseball games.”
I asked about his resilience to give up early runs and then settle in.
“It's sink or swim at that point. The worst has already happened. The shutout has gone away and it really can't get much worse, in my opinion, from that point. I just have to attack, attack, attack because my goal is to put up zeros, right? So as soon as that doesn't happen, it's really easy to relax and let things let loose.”
The Ballers travel to Great Falls tomorrow to take on the Voyagers, who are 4-11 on the season and have dropped their last four. First pitch scheduled for 5:30 Pacific with B’s ace Gabe Tanner on the mound. Dispatches will be there with live coverage.
Odds & Ends:
The Range Riders have two mascots—Cliff the Mountain Goat and Huck the Bear—and also clearly have multiple people playing the roles. Cliff was about a foot shorter tonight than they were on Wednesday.
Stadium staff made B’s fans take down the Ballers flag they’d (ok, I’d) placed on top of the visitor’s dugout. They vociferously denied this had anything to do with it being for the rival team despite other items being allowed atop all game. An older couple of Glacier fans, scorecards in hand, apologized for the usher’s behavior: “I’m so sorry that happened. I hope that doesn’t ruin your experience.”
There was a bald eagle flyover in the top of the 4th inning after the B’s first run. Another eagle flew over later in the game. B’s fan Mike Chouinard got the local explanation: “It’s not special, it came from a dump down the road.”
With photos from Dawn Pieper and Mike Chouinard. Make sure to check out Mike’s reviews of all things Glacier in his Instagram story today.
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
