Charlotte Knights 7, Durham Bulls 5
Thank heaven for the Durham, who once again submitted to Charlotte, improving the Knights record to 34-28. The Bulls are now 0-8 this season vs. Charlotte, so the quick math tells you that the Knights would be a losing team without the help of Tampa’s Triple-A affiliate.

The heroes in this victory are the five relievers who rescued Charlotte from an abysmal start from Joe Rock by pitching 8 1/3 innings of two-hit, one-run, 12-K ball. And welcome back to Peyton Pallette — sorry you’re back in the minors, but the fireballer earned his first Knights save of 2026 with a scoreless ninth.

Braden Montgomery, Michael Turner (GWRBI walk!) and Ryan Galanie (homer to tie the game, 4-4) all clocked in with two-hit games, but the big hit for Charlotte came from rehabbing DH Everson Pereira, whose third-inning homer brought the Knights to within 4-3 and boosted his club’s WPA by 16.2%:

But seriously, Montgomery added two walks and a HBP to his tally tonight and is looking awfully ready for a trip to the South Side. Yes, it’s a matter of getting Sam Antonacci and Tristan Peters at-bats while bringing Montgomery and Pereira to the South Side (not to mention the rehabbing Austin Hays), but Braden is quickly indicating there’s not much left for him to do in Charlotte but pad his stats.

Knoxville Smokies 14, Birmingham Barons 5
A miserable season gets even worse for Birmingham (21-34), as it was trampled by, of all insulting things, Cubs Double-A affiliate Knoxville. Lucas Gordon proved again that the “Double-A wall” is a real thing, flattening arms who were otherwise dominant at Single-A or even in brief Double-A stints. The southpaw is an SSS favorite, so let’s hope he can rally in the final two-thirds of the season and position himself for an assignment to Charlotte in 2027.

Obviously, the arms were nothing to brag on for Bham today, tallying six homers allowed. But with just two exceptions the bats were shamed on Saturday as well. In some smart lineup construction for Barons skipper Guillerom Quiroz, it was Jordan Sprinkle and Alec Makarewicz batting first and second in the order who inflicted damage.

Thirteen games worse than .500 is a new low-water mark for the Barons in 2026, but let’s not presume it’s not going to get worse for the 2024/2025 Southern League champs.

Hub City Spartanburgers 9, Winston-Salem Dash 4
Winston-Salem was pretty well battered by the Burgers, holding just a brief lead (2-1) but otherwise sending 6,021 fans home from Truist Stadium with ketchup and mustard all over their shirts. The Dash pitchers were varying degrees of bad (10 walks and just five strikeouts is a bad ratio, right?), with none of the four adding up to anything resembling good.

On the batting side, well, it was another killer game for Caleb Bonemer (2-for-4, R, three RBI, HR, 2B, BB), and it sure seems like if he can get his glove settled a bit he’s ticketed for Birmingham. His home run in the bottom of the first gave the Dash their only lead of the game:

On the flip side, a couple of weeks ago we were all feeling George Wolkow fever, but even after gathering a hit and walk in tonight’s game that big fella is stalled at .227/.316/.418 — numbers generally in line with his Low-A work, minus 2025’s speed (33 steals vs. 3-for-6 this season) and defense (fifth error went into the books tonight).

But our recap copy can’t be that short, so let’s add that Kannapolis (28-28) pitching didn’t exactly make the game close, allowing the Crawdads 14 hits — five for extra bases and one leaving the yard.

Alexander Albertus suffered the ignominy of grounding into not one, but two, double plays in the game, erasing walks and squelching dreams. On the flip side, Max Banks proved himself mortal, but in dropping to 4-1 on the season implied that you have to no-hit his offense to beat him.

Rookie Leagues

ACL Rangers 7, ACL White Sox 1
Just when it seemed the Complex Sox (9-17) might be back on their way toward making a run at .500 after two straight wins, the Rangers came to Camelback Ranch and snuffed them on four hits, 7-1. The good news? Well, after one inning, the White Sox led, 1-0. Other than that, it was a solid effort from middle reliever Orlando Suarez (2 IP, hit, three Ks), and that’s about it. The Complex Sox offense squeezed 12 Ks into seven innings and walked just one time; no batter reached base more than once in the game.

DSL Giants Orange 11, DSL White Sox 3
Another day, another blowout loss in the Dominican Republic to a Giants-affiliated DSL club. While S.F. didn’t score three touchdowns today against Chicago as it did against the Giants Black team on Friday, this was still another doleful drubbing for our DSL squad, dropping now to 2-3 on the young season. Down 10-3 at the game’s midway point, it was another atrocious showing for most of the White Sox arms, with exceptions being righty relievers Erlyn Lauriano (1 ⅔ scoreless innings) and Juan Felix (notching Chicago’s 21st out by striking out the only batter he faced).