This Day in Shuckers History: July 4
While we unfortunately won’t be able to bring you any live baseball until 2021, let’s take a look back at this date in Biloxi Shuckers history. The Shuckers have played five games all-time on Independence Day and have a 2–3 record.
On July 4, 2015, the Shuckers fell victim to an excellent pitching performance by current Brewers farmhand Jake Faria, when he was a member of the Montgomery Biscuits. Faris started and threw seven no-hit innings while walking three and striking out 14 batters, as the Biscuits earned a 7–2 victory. Victor Roache greeted a reliever with a triple to begin the eighth inning, breaking up the no-hitter. Orlando Arcia also ripped a three-bagger in the ninth inning and came in to score on a base hit by Michael Reed.
Get Joe Traub’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
5,821 fans packed MGM Park on Independence Day in 2016 and watched Biloxi take down the Jacksonville Suns by a final score of 5–1. Tyrone Taylor launched a three-run homer in the fifth inning and Garrett Cooper connected on a solo blast in the same frame. Gabriel Noriega had three hits including a double, while starting pitcher Brooks Hall contributed a two-bagger in addition to allowing just four hits and one run in 6.2 innings.
The Shuckers were held to two hits and fell 4–0 to Pensacola in 2017 in front of an outstanding crowd of 6,098. The next year, Biloxi traveled to Pearl for Independence Day and dropped the series opener 2–0 in a game that was called in the fifth inning due to rain. Two delays halted the game, one in the fourth inning and then in the next frame, when the grounds crew was unable to completely cover the field with the tarp due to the intensity of the storm. Jake Gatewood and Lucas Erceg each had two hits for the Shuckers.
In 2019, the Shuckers again played in Pearl, and it was a more joyous holiday this time around as they defeated the M-Braves 4–3 in ten innings. Bruce Caldwell lifted the go-ahead sacrifice fly in the tenth before Marcos Diplan came in and emphatically shut the door in the bottom half, retiring all three batters he faced while not allowing the automatic runner to advance past second base. Jake Gatewood and Joantgel Segovia knocked in runs with base hits early in the game to help Biloxi build a 3–0 lead, but the M-Braves squared things up with two runs in the eighth and a single tally in the ninth.
Throughout the Southern League and most of Minor League Baseball, every team plays at home on either July 3 or July 4 in order to host an Independence Day celebration with post-game fireworks, often the highest attended game of the season. Due to this, July 3 has always been a series finale for the Shuckers and the Fourth has normally served as a travel day followed by a series opener.
