Johan Dominguez tossed three scoreless innings and combined with five relievers to cool off Norfolk’s offense as the Charlotte Knights defeated the Tides 4-2 on Sunday before 4,638 fans at Harbor Park.
The Knights (41-67, 6-27 in International League’s second half) snapped the Tides’ three-game winning streak. Norfolk (68-39, 20-13) still won the series 5-2, owns the best overall record in the league and is only a half-game behind first-place Lehigh Valley in the second-half standings.
The Tides were coming off a doubleheader sweep Saturday night in which they scored a combined 14 runs.
Charlotte took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on Korey Lee’s RBI single and never relinquished it. Xavier Fernandez added an RBI double in the fifth and Stephen Piscotty’s run-scoring single in the sixth made it 3-0.
Norfolk scored both of its runs in the bottom of the sixth on Connor Norby’s sacrifice fly to right and Kyle Stowers’ RBI triple to center.
The Tides, though, managed only two more baserunners the rest of the way.
Norfolk’s Joey Ortiz went 2 for 4 with a run to increase his batting average to .354 this season. He has hit safely in nine of his past 10 games and has five multi-hit contests in that span.
Tides starter Bruce Zimmermann (3-4) took the loss despite allowing just an unearned run in three innings.
Norfolk is off Monday and will hit the road for the next two weeks. The Tides will visit Jacksonville for six games starting Tuesday and head to Memphis starting Aug. 15 for six more games.
