Charlotte completes six-game sweep of Durham with late power surge

Charlotte kept pressing until Durham finally cracked. After falling behind 5-0 through 4 1/2 innings, the Knights roared back for a 12-5 win Sunday at Durham Bulls Athletic Park and completed a six-game sweep that carried them to their sixth straight victory.

The finale played out in the same direction as much of the series: Durham got the first swing, but Charlotte kept landing the heavier blows. Jason Matthews opened the decisive eighth inning with his first home run of the season, and Korey Lee followed with a three-run shot in the same five-run frame that blew the game open. What had been a tense afternoon at DBAP quickly turned into another runaway finish for the Knights.

Charlotte finished with 12 hits and two errors, while Durham had 11 hits and played error-free. The numbers fit the feel of the game. The Bulls built their 5-0 edge early, but the Knights kept trimming the gap, then broke the contest with one surge that made the final margin look far more one-sided than the middle innings suggested.

The sweep also said plenty about where Charlotte stands right now. The Knights entered the finale at 35-28 and sat 3.5 games behind first place in the International League, while carrying the league’s best run differential at plus-92 in the club recap. That kind of profile does not come from one hot night. It comes from a lineup that keeps producing, with Matthews and Lee joining a series that already featured a strong start from Hagen Smith, who struck out nine over 4 1/3 innings in the 6-1 opener, and a comeback from four runs down in Saturday’s 7-5 win.

For Durham, the sweep was a harsh end to a series in which the Bulls never found a way to stop the late push. Durham fell to 24-39 and had already gone 0-4 against Charlotte in 2026 before Sunday’s finale. The Knights’ ability to keep coming, game after game, turned a road trip into a statement and left the Bulls searching for answers after six straight losses in the matchup.