The Pioneer Baseball League uses a unique “Knockout Round”, a homerun “shoot-out” to replace extra innings. Thus, no extra innings at a PBL game, but rather if a game is tied after nine innings fans will get the extra treat of watching a sudden-death homerun contest settle the score.

Here’s how it works: the visiting team designates a hitter for the first round who gets a two-minute period to see how many homers he can hit. Then the home team gets the same opportunity. If they’re still tied after the first round a additional rounds are played with a different hitter each time until a winner is declared.

Each team gets to select their own batting practice pitcher to throw in the contest.

It was recently reported that MLB is considering using a “Knockout Round” style format to decide ties in its All-Star Game. The PBL announced through social media that it fully supports this proposal considering how successful and how much fun PBL fans have with the PBL Knockout Round.

2026 PBL Knockout Round Standings