Long Island Ducks reset for second-half push in crowded North Division

Long Island entered Friday tied with York at 8-3 in the Atlantic League second-half North Division race, and the Ducks did it with a roster that already looks different from Opening Day. Jacob Crowley, Jacobson, Hogan, Roberts and Womack have all shown up in the club’s midseason personnel updates, and Bauer was lined up to start Sunday, a clear sign that roles are still shifting as the schedule turns.

That matters in a split-season league where the first half and second half carry separate postseason weight. Hagerstown and Southern Maryland already claimed the league’s 2026 first-half championships, so the North Division is now its own race and every series can move a club closer to October. A July 15 Atlantic League Glance had York and Long Island deadlocked at 8-3 in the second half, which left little room for either team to coast.

The Ducks have answered the churn the way independent clubs usually do, by mixing stability with constant adjustment. Long Island’s official site keeps separate active roster, pitchers and catchers pages, and the transactions page tracks the kind of week-to-week movement that comes with the Atlantic League. Along with Crowley, Jacobson, Hogan, Roberts and Womack, the Ducks have added a former Major League Baseball outfielder, another move aimed at keeping the lineup competitive while the rest of the division keeps changing around them.

That flexibility fits a franchise that has long treated roster management as part of the job. Long Island’s archive shows the Ducks have won both first-half and second-half titles in previous seasons, and the club’s public calendar has included spring training, camp dates, March of Dimes work and QuackerJack recognition. The next stretch is less about branding than sorting out whether this newer mix can hold against York and the rest of a crowded North Division. The Ducks’ 2026 schedule, posted Sept. 20, 2025, still leaves plenty of divisional baseball to sort out that question.