Jacksonville rallies past Charlotte, extends winning streak to four games

Jacksonville keeps winning the same way good clubs win in April: by surviving the swing innings and cashing in when the game tilts. Trailing 2-0, the Jumbo Shrimp scored five times in the sixth and beat Charlotte 5-3 on April 16 at VyStar Ballpark, their fourth straight victory and ninth in 11 games.

The rally started with patience, not power. Jesús Bastidas drew a walk, Cody Morissette singled and Andrew Pintar followed with an RBI single to cut the deficit to 2-1. After Kemp Alderman was hit by a pitch, Joe Mack and Jacob Berry worked back-to-back walks to flip the score. Pintar added a sacrifice fly, then Kyle Stowers, on rehab, lined a run-scoring single that pushed Jacksonville ahead 5-2 and turned a one-run game into a cushion.

That sixth inning mattered because Jacksonville did not need one swing to rescue it. It needed discipline, contact and enough pressure to force Charlotte into the kind of half-inning that can unravel fast. Zach McCambley earned the win with two scoreless relief innings, and William Kempner finished it for his third save of the season, striking out three of the last four batters he faced. The Shrimp also stranded eight Charlotte runners over the final four innings, a sign that the bullpen and defense were comfortable handling the traffic once the lead was in hand.

Charlotte had its moments. Drew Romo homered in the second and added an RBI single in the fourth, giving the Knights both of their first two runs. Jarred Kelenic drove in Charlotte’s final run with an RBI single in the seventh, but that was as close as the visitors got after Jacksonville seized control in the sixth.

Thomas White gave Jacksonville a meaningful developmental look in the middle of the night’s business. The 21-year-old left-hander, drafted by Miami in Competitive Balance Round A in 2023, worked four innings and struck out eight in his rehab return after opening the season on the injured list. For a club trying to stack wins without leaning only on the long ball, that kind of outing matters just as much as the late insurance.

The announced crowd of 6,212 watched Jacksonville improve to 10-8, while Charlotte fell to 7-10. The next game in the series was scheduled for Friday at 7:05 p.m., with Robby Snelling set to start for Jacksonville against Tanner McDougal, and the Shrimp’s latest comeback only reinforced the trend: they are becoming one of the league’s most reliable late-game clubs.