The Knights finally got a well-pitched bullpen game, but the offense flamed out, with just a solo home run, double and four singles in a 4-1 loss to the Norfolk Tides in Charlotte Friday night.
The Knights have a starting pitching shortage this week with the recent injury to Jonathan Stiever and the Mike Wright call-up. Which means the team expects every pitcher who enters a game to eat up innings, and they’ll be left out on the mound to do so, regardless of their performances.
As a result, bullpen games rarely go well for the Knights. And this one didn’t get off to a good start. Lane Ramsey opened, went two innings and gave up four hits and two runs. But the rest of the staff answered the call, starting in the third inning with Tanner Banks, who gave up three hits, including a solo homer, and just the one run while striking out five. Jace Fry was equally effective, with two innings of shut-out ball.
But Bennett Sousa may have had the clutch performance of the night. In the top of the eighth, he surrendered a single and double before striking out the next the three Tides’ hitters. Unfortunately, he gave up a solo homer in the top of the ninth, though the run did not matter in the end.
With the staff keeping it close, the only question was whether the offense could get rolling. But the same team that teased us with 26 hits, six home runs and 15 runs in a double header sweep on Wednesday had nothing in the tank tonight.
The Knights had some great chances to score in the fifth and six innings. In the fifth, the Knights put runners on the corners with no outs, but a Grandal strikeout and a Jake Burger double play ended that threat. One inning later, the Knights got two batters on, courtesy of an error and a walk, with one out. But Micker Adolfo and Matt Reynolds both struck out.
Sometimes, you have to credit the opposition. Tides starter Cody Sedlock gave up just three singles over five innings, with six strikeouts, in his Triple-A debut. Sedlock was the Orioles’ first-round pick in the 2016 draft and looked deserving of it tonight, despite just so-so Double-A stats this year.
He was followed by Blaine Knight, who scattered three hits and a lone Blake Rutherford solo homer over the final four frames.
The Knights had just six hits, and Rutherford had half of them, including a solo homer and two singles. After struggling for much of 2021, Rutherford is heating up, with a .300 batting average and a .327 OBP in his last dozen games. In 50 at bats over that span, he has three doubles, a triple and two home runs.
An even hotter hitter, Mikie Mahtook, had a single in four trips, while Marco Hernandez chipped in a double.
It was a rough night for Micker Adolfo, who struck out in all three at bats, all on breaking pitches that made him look over-matched. Burger kept hitting the ball hard, including a 106-mph ground out, but had nothing in the hit column.
More On Mahtook’s Walk-Off Grand Slam On Wednesday
I asked Mahtook to walk me through the at bat.
“We’ve played this team a few times and I’ve faced that guy a few times this year,” the slugger said. “And we have scouting reports on his tendencies and things like that. He likes to throw his fastball away and he likes to throw his slider off of it. He missed a first-pitch fast ball and I was looking for something over the plate and in the back of my mind I figured he was going to throw a slider in there and he threw one right over the plate and I was able to put the barrel on it and hit it out.”
“It wasn’t a bad pitch,” he continued. “But it wasn’t a strike to ball (didn’t have a lot of downward movement) and I was just trying to keep my bat path there and I knew I only needed to get the ball up in the air to get a sac fly to win the game and I was able to put the barrel on it and it ended up carrying out. It was the first walk-off homer in my life.”
What Is Mahtook Doing Differently At The Plate?
Mahtook is hitting .341 in the last 30 days, with seven homers and seven doubles in 82 at bats. But he said his plate approach hasn’t changed. Instead, hard-hit balls that had been outs are now falling in for hits.
“As the year progressed, I felt better and better,” he said, “but the numbers on the scoreboard didn’t tell the whole story. I was hitting the ball really hard but had a lot of bad luck early in the year. My batting average on balls in play was really low. As far as changing my swing, I haven’t done any of that.”
Roster News
In what might have been a long overdue move, the White Sox promoted Birmingham infielder Romy Gonzalez to Charlotte Friday. Gonzalez, 24 and an 18th round pick of the White Sox in 2018, hit 20 home runs, 47 RBI and 21 stolen bases in 303 at bats in Double-A.
We’ll see if there’s a corresponding move to break up the Knights’ infield logjam. Jake Burger is entrenched at third and Gavin Sheets and Yermin Mercedes will divide most of the first-base at bats. That leaves Gonzalez, Laz Rivera, Ti’Quan Forbes, Reynolds, Hernandez and Zach Remillard to cover second and short, and occasionally filling in at third and first.
Photo credit: Sean Williams/FutureSox
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