Lee's walk-off double caps Charlotte's wild 9-8 win over Oklahoma City

Korey Lee ended one of Triple-A’s wildest games of the week by lining a walk-off double into the left-field corner with Junior Perez on second, lifting Charlotte past Oklahoma City 9-8 on Thursday night at Truist Field. The Knights had trailed by two with two outs in the eighth before Andy Weber tied it, then survived one more frantic inning before Lee finished the job in the ninth.

The game had the feel of a slugfest from the start. Charlotte struck for two runs in the first, with Caden Connor driving in the opening run on an RBI double and Dustin Harris following with an RBI single. Connor kept the pressure on later, launching his fourth home run of the season in the fifth inning as the Knights kept taking swings at the Comets every time Oklahoma City answered back.

That back-and-forth rhythm never let up. Charlotte put together a three-run sixth to create some breathing room, but Oklahoma City kept chipping away and then flipped the game in the seventh with a four-run burst that sent the visitors ahead 8-6. Hyeseong Kim was one of the Comets’ most dangerous bats, collecting three hits as Oklahoma City forced Charlotte to keep chasing.

The Knights’ response in the eighth was the kind that changes a night, and sometimes a series. With two outs and down by two, Weber delivered a pinch-hit, two-run double to left-center field to knot the score at 8-8 and reset the entire game for the ninth. Charlotte’s ninth-inning rally kept moving long enough for Lee to get the last swing, and when his double reached the corner, Perez scored and Truist Field turned into a celebration.

The official box score listed 5,364 fans in attendance, with first pitch at 7:08 p.m. and the game lasting 3 hours, 17 minutes. It was 91 degrees and partly cloudy with a 6 mph wind at the start, a muggy backdrop for a game that kept swinging from one club to the other before Charlotte finally closed it out. For a Knights team that entered at 36-30, it was the kind of win that can steady a week, even in a season where nothing came easy.