Good Charlotte: Johnson, Knights go off

Sunday was a good day to be a Knight.

Erik Johnson pitched eight scoreless innings and three players -- George Kottaras, Micah Johnson and Matt Davidson -- slugged a pair of home runs apiece as Triple-A Charlotte defeated Pawtucket, 13-1.

Johnson (5-5) allowed four hits while striking out nine in the win. The right-hander didn't allow a walk and slimmed his ERA to 3.00.

Kottaras -- a 2002 20th-round pick by San Diego -- hit his first professional grand slam in the first inning and plated six runs for the second consecutive game. The backup backstop's previous career high for RBIs was five, last achieved on Aug. 31, 2012 while with Oakland against the Boston Red Sox. His last Minor League five-RBI game was on April 14, 2008 while with Pawtucket.

No. 9 White Sox prospect Davidson clobbered homers No. 12 and 13 on the season, giving him the outright International League lead. Johnson, meanwhile, doubled his season total with a leadoff shot in the first, then went to the opposite field in the seventh for his third homer of the season.

Through May 30, Johnson was 4-4 with a 4.14 ERA in nine appearances. In four starts since, he's gone 2-2 with a 0.96 ERA, striking out 32 and walking just four.

Johnson allowed a pair of baserunners over the first three innings, but finished the third with three straight strikeouts. Those punchouts began a stretch in which Johnson retired 14 straight batters, fanning half of them. John Bowker ended the run with a two-out single in the seventh.

The right-hander allowed a leadoff single to Gorkys Hernandez in the eighth, but finished his outing by inducing a 4-6-3 double play to end the eighth.

"I just filled up the zone," Johnson said. "That's what I did. The byproduct of filling the zone up is you get a ton of guys out and you get to go deep in the game. I was very thankful after the … first inning when we put up six runs, so now, really, as a pitcher, you can just fill up the zone and let your own pitches work."

Johnson leads the International League with 88 strikeouts in 78 innings. The 25-year-old said the strikeouts are coming because he's successfully working counts.

"Just getting to the counts to be able to strike out and get those opportunities is the biggest thing," he said. "If you cut down on the walks and work into those 0-2, 1-2 counts and you're able to … strike them out and get them out early in the count, you don't have to waste one to two to three pitches."

Sunday marked just the fifth game this month in which Kottaras has played. In his previous start June 18, he went 2-for-5 with a home run, a double, six RBIs and two runs scored.

The 32-year-old picked up where he left off Sunday. After Johnson cracked a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, the Knights scored another run and loaded the bases with a double, a walk and two singles. Kottaras stepped in against Casey Sadler and lifted an inside fastball into the upper deck in right field at Charlotte's BB&T Ballpark.

Kottaras took Sadler deep again to lead off the fifth, giving the Knights a 7-0 advantage.

"George, I've connected with him. The last few day games, I've had him behind the plate," Johnson said. "If he can put that production not just behind the plate, but beside the plate, that's fine, too. I'll take it."

Davidson hit his 11th homer Saturday night, which tied him with Durham backstop J.P. Arencibia for the league lead. The 24-year-old separated himself with his two long balls Sunday. He lifted his average to .232 with the four-hit game, a notable uptick from last season when he hit .199 average with 20 homers.

Meanwhile, leadoff man and Chicago's No. 4 prospect Johnson led off the first with a homer to right-center to give him two in 30 Triple-A games this year. He followed with a solo shot in the seventh -- this one to the opposite field -- that put Charlotte ahead, 13-1.

Davidson and Johnson finished with three RBIs, with Davidson going 4-for-5 with three runs.