The affiliates went 2-2, and the Knights game was crazy
Nashville Sounds 14, Charlotte Knights 13 (11 innings) (Statcast box)
The Knights (47-50) failed to even the series against the strong Sounds (57-39) in a back-and-forth battle in Nashville.
Knights starter Noah Syndergaard, 32, did not have his finest performance. Syndergaard allowed two in the first and three in the fourth to finish with five earned runs allowed in four frames.
Incredibly, when Syndergaard left the game, the Knights had a 7-5 lead. Like Nashville, Charlotte scored two in the first, and on top of that, Charlotte had a monster fourth inning, scoring five runs. During those first four frames, Will Robertson hit two homers and drove in three runs. Incredibly, the biggest hit in that time was actually not by Robertson but by catcher Blake Sabol, who launched a three-run homer.
In the sixth, Bryan Ramos reached on a catcher interference, and he stole second. After Ramos put himself in scoring position, Dominic Fletcher drove him in with a single to center to make the score 8-5.
The score remained 8-5 until the bottom of the eighth, when the Knights bullpen finally ran into trouble. Unfortunately, after this point, Charlotte’s bullpen struggled immensely overall. A two-run double by Freddy Zamora against Fraser Ellard got the Sounds back within one run.
Jairo Iriarte took over on the mound in the ninth, looking to protect a one-run lead. With two outs that inning, the Sounds had runners on first and second, still trailing by one. Third baseman Oliver Dunn came through in the clutch with an RBI single to tie the game and force the game into extras.
The Knights appeared to put the game away in the top of the 10th, when Tristan Gray hit an RBI single, and Ramos, Fletcher, and Sabol hit three consecutive RBI doubles.
Well, Knights reliever Caleb Freeman retired the first two batters he faced in the bottom of the 10th, but the wheels fell off. After a walk and an RBI single to drive in the ghost runner, Drew Avans launched a three-run homer to tie the game at 12. Seriously, what was this game?
Corey Julks led off the top of the 11th with an RBI single to drive in the ghost runner, but the Knights did not score after that.
Freeman remained on the mound to open the bottom of the 11th, and Daz Cameron hit a ground-rule double to tie the game once again. Bobby Dalbec reached on an error by Ramos, and Penn Murfee took over on the mound. From there, Dunn lined a soft, well-placed single that barely got by Gray to walk it off.
Birmingham Barons 3, Montgomery Biscuits 1
The Barons (53-38) got another great pitching performance, and that helped them get another low-scoring victory over Montgomery (48-44). Incredibly, this was Birmingham’s 11th consecutive win.
Barons starter Shane Murphy, 24, was really on top of his game, as the Biscuits could not figure him out. Murphy delivered five scoreless innings, and he only allowed one hit, which was a single. This excellent performance reduced Murphy’s ERA with Birmingham to 1.45 in 80 2⁄3 innings.
By the time Murphy’s outing was over, Birmingham had a 2-0 lead. The first of those runs scored in the second, when Sam Antonacci led off with a double. Two batters later, Mario Camilletti drove in the game’s first run with a single to left.
In the fifth, Rikuu Nishida led off with his second bunt single of the day, and he finished 3-for-3 with a walk. Nishida proceeded to swipe his 30th base of the season, and he scored on a single by Ryan Galanie.
The Barons did not need any additional offense to come out on top in this game. The Biscuits scored their only run in the sixth on a wild pitch by Jared Kelley. The Barons wrapped up the scoring in the eighth, when Colby Smelley drove in Antonacci with a two-out single.
Winston-Salem Dash 8, Aberdeen IronBirds 4
The Dash (35-55) offense was on fire early on in this game, and they rode that early wave to their third consecutive victory. With this win, the Dash passed Aberdeen (35-56) in the standings.
Drake Logan led off the game with a single, and Jeral Perez wasted no time drive in the game’s first runs. Perez blasted his 16th homer of the year to make the score 2-0, and the Dash never looked back.
Winston-Salem was not even close to done in the first pair of innings. Right after the homer by Perez, Braden Montgomery singled to continue the big inning. From there, Alec Makarewicz crushed his sixth homer, and four batters into the game, it was 4-0.
With one out in the second, Ryan Burrowes and Drake Logan drew back-to-back walks. Burrowes and Logan executed a brilliant double-steal, and Burrowes raced home on a wild pitch. Perez drew a walk, and Montgomery drove in a run with a double. With two outs, Samuel Zavala drove in a pair with a single to make the score 8-0. Zavala was thrown out at second, but the damage was done by that point.
Dash starter Lucas Gordon, 23, ran into some trouble in the second and was pulled with two outs in the inning. However, even at that point, the Dash had an 8-2 lead, and that bullpen’s performance was terrific. The IronBirds scored finally scored two against the bullpen in the eighth against Vince Vannelle. Reliever Jarold Rosado took over with an 8-4 lead in the ninth, and things got a bit dicey with one out. Rosado allowed two singles, and he issued a walk to load the bases. However, Rosado escaped the jam without allowing any runs to seal the deal.
Carolina Mudcats 9, Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 3
The Cannon Ballers (43-49) dropped their second straight one-sided game to the mighty Mudcats (53-35).
Kannapolis starter Grant Umberger, 23, was uncharacteristically ineffective, allowing four earned runs on 10 hits in 3 1⁄3 innings. Umberger did have some bad luck on balls in play, as his numbers were rough despite allowing no homers. However, even considering the bad luck, it was not his finest outing. When Umberger left the game, Carolina had a 4-0 lead.
The Mudcats extended their lead to five in the fifth, when Manuel Veloz took over on the mound. Control was an issue for Veloz, who issued four walks in 1 2⁄3 frames. Carolina scored one run against him, which came on a wild pitch.
The Cannon Ballers stuck their noses back in the game with two outs and nobody on in the seventh. Nathan Archer and Mikey Kane drew back-to-back walks to extend the inning, and Arxy Hernández drove in a run with a single. After a wild pitch and a two-run single by George Wolkow, the score was 5-3. However, the Mudcats added four more in the eighth, and the Cannon Ballers did not score again.