The Charlotte Knights had a chance to turn a dead night into something worth remembering, and for one inning it looked like they might pull it off. Instead, Nashville had the last word.
Charlotte managed just zero hits through five innings and was 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position while the offense stayed stuck in neutral. The Knights also kept the strikeouts relatively contained, fanning only five times, but there wasn’t much else to hang onto. David Sandlin and Garrett Schoenle each surrendered a run in the fourth and fifth, leaving Charlotte down 2-0 and searching for a spark.
That spark finally arrived in the sixth. Austin Hays doubled, then Ryan Galanie sent a ball off the left field light post to tie the game at two apiece.
The rally briefly gave Charlotte life, but it didn’t last long. Wikelman González gave up a go-ahead RBI double and a sacrifice fly in the eighth, and Nashville closed out the 4-2 win from there.
Galanie finished as the clear offensive bright spot for Charlotte, going 1-for-3 with a run, two RBI, a strikeout and a home run. Hays was 1-for-4 with a run, while Peyton Pallette turned in 1 2/3 scoreless innings with a hit, a walk and three strikeouts. Mario Camilletti added a 2-for-4 night with a strikeout.
Birmingham’s game with Chattanooga was tighter and decided by a single inning. The Barons edged the Lookouts 7-6, and the fourth inning made the difference.
The two clubs traded punches all night, matching each other in the first, third and seventh innings. But Birmingham grabbed control in the fourth after Jake Palisch got out of the top half with only a hit-by-pitch.
Colby Shelton led off the bottom half with a single, then stole second and took third on a throwing error by Chattanooga’s Cade Hunter. With a runner on third and nobody out, Ryan Burrowes brought Shelton home with a sacrifice fly, and that run ended up holding up as the go-ahead score.
On the mound, Juan Carela allowed four runs in his first outing back from the injured list. Palisch gave up two runs but earned the win with five innings of relief work. Jonathan Clark was the only Birmingham pitcher to go scoreless.
Dylan Campbell led the Barons at the plate, finishing 3-for-4 with a run and a strikeout. Alec Briley went 2-for-4 with two runs and three RBI, and Jorge Corona was 1-for-2 with a run, three RBI and a walk.
Winston-Salem had no trouble putting Brooklyn away, rolling to a 14-4 win over the Cyclones. The Dash used a steady stream of contact and enough pressure on the bases to overwhelm the matchup, with Nick McLain, Calvin Harris, George Wolkow and Derek Cerda all posting multi-hit games. Together, they helped produce 10 runs while the lineup also struck out 11 times.
The game was still hanging around into the eighth before Wolkow broke it open with a grand slam that buried Brooklyn for good. On the mound, Grant Umberger did the heavy lifting for Winston-Salem.
A solo home run kept him from what would have been a five-inning shutout, but he still finished with five innings, three hits, one run, one walk, six strikeouts and the win. The bullpen handled the rest.
Wolkow was the headline performer, going 2-for-5 with three runs, five RBI, a walk and a strikeout. Umberger was the pitching standout, while Calvin Harris finished 2-for-3 with three runs and three walks. McLain was 2-for-3 with two runs, an RBI and three walks, and Cerda went 3-for-5 with four runs, two RBI, four RBI and a walk.
Kannapolis also finished on the right side of the scoreboard, beating Salem RidgeYaks 6-2 behind a well-timed late push. Fabian Ysalla set the tone by holding Salem to one run through five innings, and the Cannon Ballers eventually broke through after a stretch of pitcher’s-duel baseball.
The first big break came in the seventh. After Jaden Fauske drove in a run in the fifth with an RBI single, Matthew Boughton added an RBI double following Carlton Perkins’ second Salem run of the game in the seventh, giving Kannapolis a 3-2 lead.
The Ballers then padded the margin in the eighth when Yermain Ruiz threw a wild pitch that brought in a run, and Christian Gonzalez followed with a bases-loaded walk that scored two more insurance runs. Daniel Wright finished it off in the ninth.
Ysalla earned MVP honors after allowing three hits and one run over five innings with a walk, a strikeout and a home run allowed. Fauske went 2-for-4 with a run, two RBI, a walk and a stolen base, while Boughton drove in two runs and also walked twice. Marco Barrios added 1 2/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts, and Steven Lancia went 1-for-2 with a run and two walks.
In Other News...
White Sox Are Suddenly Linked To A Veteran Bat For The Stretch Run
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One name surfacing in that discussion is Toronto outfielder George Springer, whom analyst Jon Morosi identified as a potential fit for Chicago because of his recent performance and veteran presence. No deal has been reported, but the link is the kind that usually says as much about where a team is headed as it does about one player, and it leaves the White Sox with a clear question as they keep pushing through the stretch run. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Just Closed The Book On A Painful Draft Miss
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His departure closes the book on a long-running development project that never got off the ground the way the White Sox hoped. For a club still sorting through the aftereffects of past draft choices, it is another reminder that promising arms can fade quickly when command and stuff do not hold up against professional hitters. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Bullpen Help Is Here But The Deadline Debate Isnt Over
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Brazobn gives the Sox a proven bullpen piece from a New York staff that has leaned on him heavily this season, while the return for the Mets came from the lower levels of Chicagos system in Gabe Davis and Zach Franklin. Even with that addition, the broader deadline conversation around the White Sox is not finished yet, because the question now is whether one more move is still coming before the roster reset is complete. [Read more 🡒]