Ballers Capture Game 4, Force Game 5
Cobb's blast part of three-run fifth for Oakland
RAIMONDI PARK, OAKLAND - Nathan Hemmerling was cruising along.
The twenty-five-year-old Idaho Falls pitcher, playing in his first professional season, had shut down the Baller bats through four innings, allowing only two hits and striking out four (though he did issue three walks and hit a batter). He had a two-run lead, courtesy of an Eddie Pelc second-inning single that plated Thomas McCaffrey and Jacob Jablonski.
Then in the fifth, it all went to hell for the Cal-Baptist product.
Michael O’Hara, drawing the start in left field for the Ballers, led off with a single. Moments later, Tremayne Cobb Jr. sent an arcing fly ball into deep right-center field, chasing Jablonski back to the fence. Back, back, back, and … over. The ball landed in an unoccupied part of the Idaho Falls bullpen and bounced a couple of times before coming to rest with the Chukar relievers starting down at it in disbelief.
Tie game.
Cobb had barely finished receiving his congrats and customary ride in the homerun cart when the next batter, right-fielder Esai Santos, singled. Christian Almanza drew a walk, Hemmerling’s fourth of the game, bringing to the plate Cam Bufford.
That also brought Troy Percival to the mound.
The Idaho Falls manager summoned Bennett Flynn, a San Francisco native who split his college years between Davidson (yes, of Stephen Curry fame) and Notre Dame (of Jeff Samardzija fame) before spending 2024 and most of 2025 in the Toronto Blue Jays’ system; he was a late-season add for the Chukars, appearing in six games down the final stretch and getting hammered in most of them, to the tune of a 14.66 earned-run average and 2.49 WHIP1.
Not surprisingly, Flynn proved a feeble match for Bufford, the Ballers’ first 20-20 man. Flynn’s first pitch was sent back from whence it came, slamming against the pitcher’s leg2 and caroming through a massive hole in the right side of the infield — the Chukars were aligned for a double-play possibility — for a hit that scored Santos and sent Almanza to third. Bufford swiped second base, but Flynn buckled down and finished the inning. He would go on to throw 2⅓ innings and allow only one run of his own.
That one run came in the seventh, a Jake Allgeyer RBI double down the right-field line that lengthened the Oakland lead to 4-2 and chased Flynn from the game. Nicolò Pinazzi, the lefty who was so dominant in Game 1 at Melaleuca Field, entered and prevented further damage by striking out Danny Harris and getting pinch-hitter Nick Leehey to ground out.
Meanwhile, the B’s pitching staff continued their mastery of the Idaho Falls lineup since the series shifted to Raimondi. Gabe Tanner went 5⅓ strong, the lone hiccup being the Pelc two-run single in the second. It wasn’t the prettiest statline - Tanner gave up 10 hits and struck out only three and walked a pair, but he got the job done by inducing weak contact when he needed it. Caleb Franzen relieved Tanner in the sixth and retired Pelc and Trevor Rogers to end the frame. Conner Richardson began the seventh and pitched into the eighth, allowing a Jablonski homerun that cut the Oakland lead to 4-3. That homerun would ultimately prove to be of little note.
Why?
In the bottom of the eighth, the Ballers opened it up against Chuks relievers Steven Ordorica and Rob Hughes, tacking on four runs. The big blow was a Bufford three-run homer off Hughes that looked like it was shot out of a cannon and landed in the left-field net just a few feet away from where Lozano’s Game 3 blast ended up. The Ballers led 8-3.
That would be the final salvo. Connor Sullivan, who replaced Richardson with two outs in the eighth, retired the Chukars in order in the ninth, getting Ben Rosengard to wave futilely at a breaking ball in the dirt for the final out - and some primal, celebratory screaming and flexing from the reed-thin right-hander who has been so clutch during his time in Oakland.
What’s next
Game 5. For all the marbles. The winner of this game gets the Pioneer League championship trophy. It’s trending toward sellout crowd, with only scattered seats remaining.
Ouch.
"Off of the shin of Flynn” Tyler Petersen yelled into the mic, perhaps unaware he was writing poetry in the moment.