[JayW UK]

2026 Season Notes

Spring Training – Las Vegas pitcher Max Castle suffered a setback in his rehab from shoulder surgery meaning he would not be ready to play until June, his injury threw the Gamblers rotation plans up in the air but with the likes of Anthony Barrett, Dave Cahill and 2023 first round draft selection Holden Willis available to pick up the slack, Las Vegas were in a stronger position than most to deal with the setback.
After two disappointing and injury ravaged campaigns, two-time batting champion Alejandro Pichardo found himself looking for a new team after being released by New York. He found few takers given his recent struggles with injury, eventually settling on a one year $1M deal with Minneapolis hoping a change of scenery would help him avoid the injury bug.
April 2nd – Cleveland’s star shortstop Richie Rambeaux suffered a dislocated shoulder ruling him out until July at the earliest.
April 12th – Las Vegas star Anthony Barrett collected his 3000th strikeout against Phoenix, but it wasn’t enough to help his Gamblers as they fell 6-3.
April 13th – 40-year-old Zander Pace, now pitching out of the bullpen for San Diego racked up his 2000th career strikeout.
April 22nd – Washington’s International Free agent signing Tatsui Aoyama endeared himself to his new fans, hitting for the CYCLE (4-5, 5RBI 2R) while leading the Generals to an 11-2 rout of Indianapolis.
April 23rd – Denver 1B Jamie Boden clubbed a walk-off Grand-Slam to complete an amazing turnaround for the Wildcats, trailing 4-0 after eight innings Boden’s slam gave Denver an improbable 8-4 victory.
May 2nd – Las Vegas ace Dave Cahill struck out 11 Houston Stars and in doing so became the latest player to reach 2000 career strikeouts.
May 6th – Denver superstar Dixon Bodean’s attack on the NABL batting records continued, he collected his 2000th career hit against Dallas, he would also reach 1000 runs scored (26th May) and 300 career homeruns (August 9th) during the season.
May 20th – Indianapolis SS Kevin Jones scored his 1000th run in a win against Miami.
May 21st – Las Vegas rookie pitcher Holden Willis suffered a shoulder injury serious enough to shelve him for the rest of the campaign, although his seasons numbers hadn’t set the world on fire (1-2, 4.86 ERA through 8 games) he had provided solid pitching while the team awaited the return of star pitcher Max Castle.
May 22nd – another day, another pitcher injured, this time Boston’s William Lane who’s elbow injury wasn’t season ending but would still keep him out of the lineup until August.
May 25th – Houston’s Marc Birstall took just 89 pitches to NO-HIT San Jose, allowing a single walk while striking out 11 in a 5-0 win.
June 1st – one week after being no-hit by Houston’s Marc Birstall, San Jose were at it again, this time the beneficiary was Las Vegas star Dave Cahill who took 100 pitches to NO-HIT the Spartans surrendering a single walk and striking out 12. (it was Cahill’s second career no-hitter, his first having come in 2020 also against San Jose)
June 1st – after a disappointing start to the season Denver manager Yoshizaku Tanaka resigned from his position. In his resignation statement he said that “philosophical differences between himself, the rest of the management team and the ownership had a detrimental effect on team chemistry and confidence, therefore he felt it best that he stepped down to allow a new voice in the clubhouse the chance to try and save the season”. Bench Coach Tom Heitman was named as interim manager until the end of the season and with the team’s record standing at 24-32 already eleven games off the pace, he would have his work cut out for him. Within days of Tanaka’s resignation stories began to emerge about what really happened, one had it that after back-to-back blowout losses to division rivals Oklahoma City, Tanaka and Heitman became involved in a furious argument and players had to separate the two men, while another had the two men barely speaking to each other at all during the season, while yet another (although unlikely story) had Tanaka finding Heitman in bed with his wife. Whatever the truth one thing that is for certain, was that after those two dispiriting losses to OKC, Tanaka approached the team’s ownership to demand that Heitman be dismissed, evidently his demand and subsequent “me or him” ultimatum fell on deaf ears and left Tanaka in a difficult situation having threatened to quit if his demands were not met. Tanaka having called ownerships bluff had no option but to resign and after saying goodbye to the players, the two-time Manager of the Year left the team and returned to his homeland to ponder his next move.
June 3rd – Seattle SS Jose Velasquez hit for the CYCLE in a game against San Jose, going 5-5 with two doubles 5 RBI’s and 3 runs scored. It was the second five hit game of the season for Velasquez having clubbed five in a May loss to LA.
June 4th – star pitcher Max Castle was back on the mound for Las Vegas, in his first NABL action since the previous September he was limited to just five innings but was still effective, allowing only a single run on three hits. However, his effort was in vain as a rare late collapse by the bullpen lost the game for LV.
June 10th – Las Vegas’ three Amigos had only just re-united when disaster struck again, this time in the form of a torn back muscle for pitcher Anthony Barrett who would miss the rest of the season. The Gamblers rotation still contained two legitimate aces in Max Castle and Dave Cahill but after the losses of Holden Willis and now Barrett Las Vegas would have to dig deep to maintain their charge for the playoffs.
June 11th – Yet another pitcher suffered an injury, this time Sanfrancisco lost Billy Moss for the season to a Torn Elbow flexor tendon.
June 12th – Seattle pitcher Dan Rogers may as well have played Denver on his own, he pitched a four hit shutout and provided all the offense he needed when he slugged a two-run homer in the sixth inning, a measure of how poor both teams batted on the day was the fact that they combined for only six hits between them.
June 23rd – having identified that their play from behind the plate was holding them back, Houston traded slugging 1B/OF Joey Buhler to Washington for catchers Mike Hinrichs and Antonio Castellanos hoping that at least one of them could provide the solid play they were looking for.
July 5th – within hours of being named an All-Star, Seattle pitcher Dan Rogers found himself on the move, the Pioneers who were going nowhere fast on the season, packed Rogers along with $2.8M off to sunny San Diego for prospects SP Ken Kramer and LF Ramon Madrid.
July 15th – Sanfrancisco CF Salvador Colon tied the NABL single game record with four stolen bases against Oklahoma City. On the same Day Chicago’s Matt Henderson collected six hits versus New York, going 6-6 with 4RBI’s helping his Zephyrs defeat the Senators 6-4.
July 19th – Atlanta’s Vince Little reached the 2500K career milestone with his fourth strikeout of the day against New Orleans.
July 25th – Atlanta moved to get some pitching help for Vince Little and Larry de Meza by trading LF Gary Ferguson and prospect SS Pedro Serrano to Kansas City for Pitcher Will Christopher.
July 27th – Las Vegas traded from a position of strength to beef up their offense, sending MR Anthony Wallace to Philadelphia to get 1B Arlan Bresnahan and an 8th round pick in the 2027 draft.
July 29th – Dallas CF Luis Anderson smashed six hits in a win against LV, he came agonizingly close to setting a new NABL record with 7 hits when his flyball deep into left field was caught at the wall by Chip Owers.
August 11th – Austin’s Carlos Vazquez reached the 1000 career runs scored milestone, scoring twice in a victory over Dallas.
August 18th – Catcher Jorge Maldonado led Detroit to a victory over New York when he smashed six hits, his line for the day 6-6, 2x 2B, HR, 3RBI, 3R.
August 22nd – New Orleans LF Daniel Garcia stole four bases in a win against Tampa Bay and Both Denver’s Luis Sanchez (vs PHO) and OKC’s rookie outfielder Bobby Schoeppell (vs MIN) hit for the cycle all on the same day.
August 24th – Las Vegas speedster Brian Quinborough collected four stolen bases helping the Gamblers beat San Diego 4-2.
August 25th – Boston CF Stu Joyce had his 26-game hitting streak ended when he went 0-3 in a loss against New Orleans.
September 9th – Cleveland 2B Jeff Johnson became the third player in less than a month to steal four bases in a game, accomplishing the feat against Detroit although ultimately it didn’t help his team who lost the game 8-4.
September 18th – Boston’s star LF Lucio Martinez single handedly carried the Pilgrims to victory over Miami (5-5, 2 HR, 5 RBI’s) and in doing so secured the Atlantic division crown for Boston.
September 19th – Lucio Martinez was at it again collecting five more hits including a 3-run homer, as Boston dispatched Miami 6-2.
September 28th – Washington’s Gabriel Lopez became the third player during the season to hurl a NO-HITTER, going the distance against Atlanta.
October 2nd - Philadelphia’s veteran closer Edgar Arrojo announced his retirement from the game after two disappointing seasons. At the time of his retirement, he was second on the all-time saves list with 464 (only Min-Jae Choi with 470 was ahead of him)