Shane Murphy retired the first eleven batters he faced Friday night at Truist Field. By the time a Buffalo hitter finally reached base against him, your Charlotte Knights had already scored both of the runs they would score all night.
Knights 2, Bisons 1. Charlotte scored all of it in the second inning.
It was September 11, twenty-five years to the day, and the ballpark was built around that. More than two thousand tickets went to first responders, the players wore custom first responders' jerseys that went up for auction to benefit a foundation named for a New York City firefighter who died at the towers, and the club led its own game recap with the room rather than the score.
Charlotte got FOUR HITS on Friday and won. Charlotte got four hits on Thursday too, the night Buffalo beat them 11-4 and piled up seventeen knocks. Same four hits. One of those nights they lost by seven. Whatever separated the two ballgames, it was not Charlotte's hit column.
Murphy went seven innings, gave up five hits and one run, struck out five, and walked nobody. His only damage was a solo home run by Davis Schneider to left center in the top of the sixth, by which point Charlotte had not scored since the second.
Tim Elko singled to center in the bottom of that second. Joey Wiemer followed him and drove a pitch from Buffalo starter CJ Van Eyk out to left, and Elko came around behind him. That was the whole Charlotte offense. Wiemer finished 2-for-3 with the homer and a single in the fourth, Jason Matthews dropped a bunt single in front of Van Eyk in the fifth, and the other six men in the batting order never got one.
Aidan Anderson came on for the eighth and gave up the only baserunner he would allow to the first man he faced. He hit Jay Harry, and then Daz Cameron bounced into a double play that took both of them off the board, Andy Weber to Riley Unroe to Elko. Schneider flied out to center to end the inning. Three in order in the ninth. Six batters, six outs, no hits.
Put the two nights next to each other. Thursday: nine walks, four hits, four runs, a seven-run loss, seventeen Buffalo hits. Friday: one walk, four hits, two runs, a win, five Buffalo hits. Charlotte's bats were the same both nights. Buffalo's were not, and that is the entire difference between the two ballgames.
Now the uncomfortable half of it, and I am not going to dress that up either. Charlotte scored fewer runs Friday than Thursday. The offense did not wake up. It landed both of its best swings in the same inning and then stopped: the last Charlotte hit of the ballgame came in the fifth, and the only man to reach after that walked. Murphy and Anderson carried a one-run lead through four innings for a lineup that had quit hitting. Six games at Norfolk are not going to care how well that worked once.
A word on where this ballclub actually sits, because the easy number is the wrong one. Charlotte is the Chicago White Sox' Triple-A affiliate, one step below the majors. The Knights are 77-65 and second in the International League East, eight games behind Rochester, and that standing decides nothing at all. The International League hands its last playoff spot to the best second-half record in the entire twenty-team league, not to the division tables. Charlotte's second half is 35-32. That is eleventh out of twenty, four games behind Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, with eight games to play.
Two of those eight are this afternoon. A day-night doubleheader at 12:35 and 5:35, and then Truist Field goes dark until spring. (The 2027 home opener is already on the books, March 30 against Memphis, if you need something to circle.) The other six are at Norfolk starting Tuesday, and then the season is finished. Charlotte leads this series 3-1, so the split is banked no matter what happens today.
Four hits. Two runs. One walk. It was enough on Friday night, at that ballpark, on that date. Norfolk is a different question, and the Knights get six of those starting Tuesday.