Double-A Biloxi Shuckers (11-9)
Starting the week just a couple of games above .500, the Shuckers are currently a half game behind first place in the Southern League South standings with a huge divisional series looming against the Montgomery Biscuits.
But first, let's recap this past week's series against the Mississippi Braves, where they split the series. In game one, Braves starting pitcher Alan Rangel threw six strong shutout innings striking out five, and on the other side, Shuckers starting pitcher Tobias Myers went six deep, giving up six hits and two runs but striking out five as well. The Shuckers' bats finally woke up in the last three innings as they scored one in the seventh, two in the eighth, and then walked it off on a passed ball in the ninth to take game one 4-3.
Not much went on in game two as the Braves evened up the series at one, winning 4-2. The biggest headline in this game was top prospect Jackson Chourio extending his hitting streak to five games with a double.
Things were more or less the same in game three as the Braves and Shuckers pitching continued to dominate as the Braves took this one 2-1. Shuckers starting pitcher Carlos Rodriguez threw five innings giving up three hits, and three walks, and a run, but most importantly striking out nine batters in his outing. However, the hitting continued to slump as the offense could only come up with three hits, and Chourio's hitting streaking coming to an end.
The Shuckers looked to get back on track during Friday night's game against the Braves, and they did just so, beginning with a strong six-inning outing by Justin Jarvis where he gave up only one run off of a home run and struck out six. The bats came alive scoring eight, which included a multi-hit home run game from Freddy Zamora, and another bomb from Jeferson Quero. Shuckers showed out in front of the home crowd 8-3.
The bats stayed hot but the pitching slumped as the Shuckers dropped game five 7-6. Chourio and Quero both had a multi-hit game. The starting pitching for both sides had strong showings as they both combined to have 15 strikeouts.
The Shuckers bats stayed alive in the final game of the series as five players had multi-hit games. Jeferson Quero went yard for the second time this weekend continuing his hot streak of 5-for-11 from the plate. The Shuckers wound up splitting the series overall with the Braves as they won 10-5 on Sunday.