Wilkerson, Shuckers slip past M-Braves

For the second straight night, the Biloxi Shuckers flirted with a no-hitter with a 4-1 win over the Mississippi Braves.

Aaron Wilkerson (3-2) struck out nine over seven innings and took a no-hitter through 6.2 innings before allowing a solo home run.

The dominant performance marked the deepest a pitcher has gone into a hitless outing in Shuckers history, surpassing the 6.1 no-hit innings delivered by Jorge Lopez in August of 2015, at Jackson. The Shuckers are now in a tie with the Braves and a game back in second place in the Southern League South Division standings.

Braves pitcher Max Fried (2-5) was nearly as good, but the Shuckers were able to bunch together hits against the lefty to give Wilkerson breathing room. A three-run third was highlighted by an RBI single from Johnny Davis and a double from Mauricio Dubon off the top of the right field wall that turned into a little-league home run when a throw from Keith Curcio flew into the stands. Jacob Nottingham added a run in the sixth with an RBI single.

Staked to a comfortable lead, Wilkerson entered cruise control. He struck out eight and walked just one before Carlos Franco hit his league-leading 10th home run with two outs in the sixth. Wilkerson finished off his night with a strikeout of Curcio before ceding the game to Tayler Scott.

Scott pitched a hitless eighth to earn a hold, and Matt Ramsey pitched around a single to seal his league-leading 11th save of the season.

With his double and another single, Dubon's 2-for-2 night gave him a .314 batting average at night's end and a league-leading 49 hits. The 22-year-old from Honduras also has a team-best 11-game hitting streak and 19 multi-hit games.

The Shuckers host the Chattanooga Lookouts in their series opener at 6:35 p.m. Thursday.

This story was originally published May 17, 2017 at 9:46 PM with the headline "Wilkerson, Shuckers slip past M-Braves."