“He went 4-for-4, huh?” said Goldpanners field manager Mark Lindsay. “I know he saved us another arm today. Our pitching’s in great shape.”

Pinal’s spent the last three days taking his best impression of Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani to new lengths. Pinal won the home run derby on Thursday night with 21 longballs and had a two-run double Friday night that proved to be the pivotal blow in the Goldpanners’ 9-3 win over the host Utah Marshalls.

His relief outing came after starter Garrett Maloney went four strong innings, giving up two runs on four hits with no walks and five strikeouts. Maloney retired the first eight batters he faced and nine of the first 10 before running into trouble in the fourth.

The Gamblers’ Riley Skow and Billy Bird opened the frame with back-to-back singles and eventually scored on sacrifice flies. With another strikeout, Maloney turned the game over to Pinal, who struck out three of the six batters he faced. The last strike fooled Chris Castaro so convincingly that his bat went flying toward the Alaska dugout.

The Goldpanners scored in the bottom of the first when Pinal singled and was able to come sliding home on a double to the wall in right-center by Cole Alexander.

In the third, Brock Rudy was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and drew a balk from Las Vegas pitcher Evan Atkinson by breaking to second after Atkinson had started his motion toward home plate. Brock Kleszcz singled, and Pinal then drove Rudy in with an RBI single. Caleb Millikan added an RBI on a 6-3 groundout.

Alaska broke the game open in the fourth with a solo home run by Griffin Harrison to lead off the inning. Cayden Clark and Kleszcz both reached first on high throws by the Las Vegas shortstop and scored on an RBI double by – of course – Pinal. Alexander followed with a double to score Pinal and stretch the Alaska lead to 7-2.

The same trio of Kleszcz, Pinal and Alexander loaded the bases on two singles and a walk before heavy rains and lightning forced the scheduled seven-inning game to be called with nobody out in the bottom of the sixth.

And with that came the uncertainty. Saturday’s semifinal against the San Diego Waves was moved to Salt Lake City Community College with a 6 p.m. start time in hopes that the all-FieldTurf surface would be ready to go. Meanwhile, the host Utah Marshalls were scheduled to start the other semifinal at Gates Field at 7 p.m.

For updates on the Goldpanners in the Marshall Gates World Series, visit the Fairbanks Daily News Miner’s website at www.newsminer.com.

Contact sports editor Jeff Olsen at 907-459-7530 or jolsen@newsminer.com.