Saturday night in Nashville, the Charlotte Knights lost their first baseman in the middle of the game. Nolan Jones did not pull up lame. He got traded.
The Knights are the Triple-A club of the Chicago White Sox, which means the big-league team in Chicago decides who wears a Charlotte uniform, and on Saturday, while a game was being played, Chicago sent Jones to the Seattle Mariners. He walked off the field. Per the club, it was the third time this season a Knight has been traded in the middle of a game.
That is the strange thing about the week Charlotte just had. The Knights won six in a row, matched the best record they have held all season, and lost three straight to end it, and the roster doing all of that kept turning over while it happened.
Consider who decided these ballgames. Jose Urquidy, described by the club as the newest addition to the pitching staff, made his first Charlotte start Tuesday and threw five scoreless innings. Eric Haase, introduced Wednesday as the newest man on the roster, drove in five of Charlotte's six runs on Thursday by himself. Riley Unroe, who homered twice in his second game with the club back in July, hit his fourth home run in just his twelfth game as a Knight. Three of the most important players of the week were barely on the team when it started.
Now, none of that is a scandal. It is the job. Triple-A exists to feed a big-league roster, and every club at this level spends the summer handing its best players to somebody else and taking in whoever arrives next. Charlotte is supposed to be a place people leave. But there is a difference between knowing that and watching your first baseman walk off the field in the middle of a ballgame because a trade cleared while he was standing on it.
Tuesday set the tone. Behind Urquidy, Ryan Galanie hit a two-run homer in the first, Andy Weber singled in a run during a four-run fourth, Austin Hays capped that inning with a three-run shot, and Rikuu Nishida went 3-for-4 from the leadoff spot. Nashville did not score until the ninth. Six to one, and a fourth straight win.
Wednesday did not start like a blowout. The Sounds homered in each of the first three innings. Galanie answered with a two-run shot in the third to tie it, and then Charlotte hung a seven-run fourth on them. Jones singled in a run. Mario Camilletti gave the Knights their first lead. Michael Turner hit a three-run homer. Haase doubled two more in and finished with a game-high three hits. Jonathan Cannon came out of the bullpen and gave them six innings on three hits, four strikeouts, and no walks.
Twelve to five, and a number worth holding onto: 57-47. Ten games over .500, matching the best mark the Knights had reached all year, with only three clubs in the entire International League holding a better record.
Thursday belonged entirely to Haase. Bases loaded and two outs in the first, he cleared them with a double. Nashville came back in front. Haase hit a two-run homer in the sixth to take the lead back. Unroe added a solo shot in the ninth for insurance, and the bullpen threw five shutout innings behind starter Shane Smith.
Six wins in a row. Nine in eleven. On the road.
Then it went, the way these things go. Slowly, and then all at once.
Friday the Knights walked the bases loaded in the fourth and walked in a run, and a wild pitch scored a second. Galanie tied it in the sixth with his seventeenth home run of the season. Nashville pushed two across in the eighth. Four to two. THE STREAK WAS OVER.
Saturday, the day Jones was traded, Nashville scored five in the first inning. Charlotte had loaded the bases with nobody out in the top half of that same inning and scored nothing. Unroe hit two home runs, a two-run shot in the second and a solo blast in the ninth, and produced every Charlotte run by himself. Six relievers held Nashville to a single run over the last eight innings. It did not matter. Six to three.
Sunday, Charlotte needed one win to take the series, and Urquidy was back on the mound. He gave them what they needed. Korey Lee tied it with a sacrifice fly in the fifth. Nashville edged ahead. Then, with two outs in the eighth, Austin Hays hit a two-run homer and put the Knights in front by a run with six outs to play.
The Sounds scored three in the bottom of that inning.
Charlotte had one left. Three walks loaded the bases in the ninth, and a double play ended the rally, the game, the series, and the road trip together. Five to three.
Three wins, three losses, a 3-3 split, and a team that sits at 58-50 on a three-game skid. If that shape looks familiar, it should. In June they took a 2-1 lead on Rochester and then lost the last three at home. They went to Nashville, reached the highest point of their season, and came home holding exactly what they left with.
Except for Nolan Jones, who is in Seattle.
Tuesday they are back at Truist Field, home, for six games against the Durham Bulls. Durham is in first place. Charlotte is 10-2 against them this season.
Ten and two, against a club in first place. That is not nothing.
So we find out quickly. Six games, at home, against the one team the Knights have handled all summer, played by a roster that may not be finished changing. Whether the real Charlotte Knights are the ones who won six straight or the ones who lost three, Tuesday starts telling us.
Truist Field, Tuesday. Bring somebody with you.