Charlotte pulls away late, beats Jacksonville 8-5 for road win

Charlotte turned Friday night into an early separation game, stacking seven runs across the first five innings and riding that cushion to an 8-5 win over Jacksonville at VyStar Ballpark. The Knights, now 20-18, moved above .500 for the first time since April 3 and stayed within five games of first place in the International League.

The first blow came in the second inning, when Ryan Galanie lined a two-run triple to start the scoring. Caden Connor followed with an RBI single, giving Charlotte a quick edge and forcing Jacksonville to play catch-up almost immediately. The Jumbo Shrimp answered with three unearned runs in the bottom half of the inning, briefly tying the game and threatening to flip the night into a sloppy shootout.

Charlotte never let that happen. Mario Camilletti opened the fifth with a leadoff home run, and the inning quickly turned into the kind of multi-layered offensive sequence that separates a hot Triple-A club from one merely hanging around. LaMonte Wade Jr. delivered a two-run single, then stole home as part of a delayed double steal, a sharp baserunning wrinkle that put Jacksonville under even more pressure. Jacob Gonzalez then drove a ball off the wall in right-center for an RBI double, extending the lead and pushing his season RBI total to 36.

That fifth inning did more than add runs. It changed the game’s shape. Instead of asking Charlotte’s bullpen to survive a one-run grinder, the Knights spent the late innings protecting a lead they had already stretched into a working margin. Jacksonville still had chances, but the box score told the story: the Jumbo Shrimp went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 10 men on base.

Ben Peoples finished it off in the ninth after Jacksonville loaded the bases and brought the tying run to the plate. He kept the ball on the ground, inducing a soft roller to second to end it and lock down the save. The result gave Charlotte its fifth win in the last six games, with the only loss in that span coming on a walk-off.

The Knights have now taken the first two games of the series, winning 5-3 on May 5 and then blowing past Jacksonville 16-1 on May 7 before Friday’s 8-5 closer. In front of 6,389 fans, with first pitch at 7:08 p.m. and a game time of 3:03, Charlotte again showed the same trait that has defined this stretch: hit early, hit hard, and make the other side chase all night.