The Charlotte Knights won five of six games from the Norfolk Tides at Truist Field last week, clinched the series with a game to spare, and left for Nashville at 55-47.
The week ran across five days rather than six. Thursday was rained out and made up as the second half of a Friday doubleheader, and the first half of that doubleheader was the only game Norfolk won all week. Three of the six were decided by a single run.
The Tides are Baltimore's Triple-A affiliate. The Knights are the Chicago White Sox's.
Tuesday and Wednesday
Tuesday was one of the one-run games. The Knights built a 7-3 lead and then watched the Tides score once in the eighth and twice in the ninth before Tyler Davis got a ground ball to end it with the tying run standing on third. Everson Pereira doubled in a run in the fourth, Austin Hays followed with a two-run homer, and Andy Weber's leadoff shot in the fifth started a four-run inning. Jaden Woods threw 1.1 scoreless innings in his first appearance at Truist Field. Tim Elko singled in his first Triple-A game since last season.
Wednesday was the one that was never in doubt. Mason Adams gave up one hit across five shutout innings and struck out five while the offense collected 12 hits and drew six walks in an 8-4 win. Norfolk's runs came late, off the bullpen. Weber had three hits, including an RBI double and a solo home run. Riley Unroe and Elko also went deep.
Friday's doubleheader
Norfolk took the first game 2-1, with Jonathan Cannon working six innings for Charlotte without a decision. The Knights took the second 6-1.
Jason Matthews broke a scoreless tie in that second game by hitting the first pitch he saw over the wall, his third home run of the year. In the top of the sixth he went deep into the hole at shortstop, stopped a ground ball off the bat of former Knight Bryan Ramos, and threw him out from there. Charlotte put the game away with a five-run sixth on Dru Baker's pinch-hit two-run single and Weber's three-run double, and Hagen Smith earned his first Triple-A win with two scoreless innings.
It was also the Knights' annual Vs. Cancer night, which the club runs with Great Clips and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Matthews lost both of his parents to cancer when he was seven years old. The night raised more than $91,000.
Saturday and Sunday
Saturday took extra work. Shane Murphy went five and left with a 4-2 lead built on a five-run fifth: a bases-loaded walk to Weber, a two-run single from Matthews, and a fielder's choice and a sacrifice fly from Hays. Norfolk erased the lead in the ninth to tie it. Garrett Schoenle got out of that inning and gave up only an unearned run in the tenth. Charlotte loaded the bases on a bunt single, a sacrifice bunt and a walk, which brought up catcher Korey Lee, trailing 6-5, on his birthday. Lee looped a single into right field to score Mario Camilletti and Unroe. He finished 2-for-5 with a double. The win clinched the series and moved the Knights to 8-2 in extra innings this season.
Sunday closed it 7-4. Norfolk led on a third-inning home run and Charlotte answered with six straight runs across the fourth, fifth and sixth. Unroe tripled in two. Hays and Pereira homered back to back in the fifth. A passed ball and a Camilletti single made it 6-1. The Tides got a three-run homer back in the seventh, and Weber answered with a solo shot in the eighth, his third of the series. Peyton Pallette made his first start of the season.
Where it leaves them
Charlotte is 55-47 overall and 13-14 in the second half, six games back in the International League East.
The Knights banked a winning first half and have spent the second one at roughly .500. The two players who went back to back on Sunday, Hays and Pereira, are here on Major League rehab assignments rather than as members of the roster, which is worth knowing before reading much into a week of box scores.
The road trip starts Tuesday at Nashville, six games at First Horizon Park, first pitch at 7:35 p.m. The last time these teams met, at Truist Field in early July, they split six games.
Norfolk left town at 36-64.