Knights pile on power, rout Jumbo Shrimp 12-4 in opener

Charlotte did not let Jacksonville’s early lead breathe. After Andrew Pintar put the Jumbo Shrimp up 2-1 with a two-run homer, the Knights answered with a blast of their own and then buried the game in a fourth-inning avalanche, riding 14 hits and three home runs to a 12-4 win at Truist Field.

The turning point came fast. Mario Camilletti drilled a two-run homer to swing the score back in Charlotte’s favor, and Jacob Gonzalez helped add separation when he took third on a steal and an error led to another run. By then, the Knights had already started to make Jacksonville pay for every mistake, and Bradley Blalock was stuck trying to survive a lineup that kept finding barrels.

The game snapped open in the fourth. Michael Turner and Caden Connor opened the inning with back-to-back home runs, and the barrage did not stop there. Walks extended the frame, Austin Hays punched in a run with a single, and Gonzalez followed with a three-run homer that pushed Charlotte’s lead to 10-2 and turned the opener into a rout.

Hays kept stacking damage in the fifth, driving home two more runs with a single as Charlotte widened the gap to 12-2. Hays finished with three RBIs, Gonzalez matched him with a three-run homer and Camilletti’s early shot gave the Knights the kind of middle-order thump that can change a Triple-A game in a hurry. Charlotte’s offense was not just productive, it was relentless, turning a one-run deficit into a runaway by chaining together extra-base hits and refusing to let Jacksonville off the hook.

Jacksonville managed only brief resistance after Pintar’s homer, and the rest of the night belonged to Charlotte’s power hitters. The Knights improved to 29-26, while Jacksonville fell to 30-25. The Jumbo Shrimp, the Triple-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins and the reigning International League and Triple-A National champions, left the opener needing a cleaner response in the middle innings.

The series continued the next night with Charlotte scheduled to send Jonathan Cannon to the mound against Jacksonville left-hander Patrick Monteverde. After a 12-run outburst built on loud contact and sustained pressure, the Knights looked like a club that can overwhelm an opponent quickly when the lineup starts rolling.