Anchorage Daily News

Seymour the Moose, a beefy right-hander from the Anchorage Convention & Visitors Bureau, set the tone Thursday at Mulcahy Stadium by throwing a one-hopper to the plate.

The ceremonial pitch by the city's wild-about-Anchorage mascot proved prophetic.

The Fairbanks Goldpanners were wild about the offerings from Anchorage Glacier Pilots starter Reed Pawelk. And Goldpanners starter Justin Azze was wild around the plate.

Yet somehow the Goldpanners' 5-3 Alaska Baseball League victory over the Pilots turned into a showcase for pitching.

Zak Basch of the Goldpanners and Dennis Bigley of the Pilots turned in ironman performances in relief, with Basch throwing 61/3 shutout innings for the win.

Basch (2-0), a right-handed sidearmer, gave up three hits and twice escaped threats to halt the Pilots' winning streak at seven.

"I haven't thrown six innings since high school," Basch said.

A middle reliever and closer at Hofstra University, where he just finished his junior season, Basch usually throws no more than one or two innings per appearance.

But he was as effective in the eighth inning, when he retired the Pilots 1-2-3 on nine pitches, as he was in the third when he entered with two outs and the bases loaded. Basch escaped that jam by getting Adam Heether on a fly to left field.

The Goldpanners scored more runs in Thursday's first two innings -- five -- than they did in two previous games against the Pilots, who beat Fairbanks 4-2 and 1-0 in the first two games of the three-game series. Fairbanks got an RBI double by Mike Hofius in the first inning and unloaded on Pawelk in the second. Scott Robinson had a leadoff homer,

Tyler Best and Tony Perez had RBI doubles and Grant Rogers had an RBI single.

But the Goldpanners almost squandered their 5-0 lead when the Pilots got to Azze in the third. Azze walked two of the first three batters, advanced the runners with a wild pitch and then gave up a two-run single to Jose Ortega. Another single and another walk loaded the bases, and Azze's fourth walk of the inning drove in another run.

That made it a 5-3 game and brought on Basch, who ended the threat with Heether's fly ball.

Basch flirted with danger in the fourth by giving up consecutive singles to Bryan Zech and David Nicholson, but that was all the Pilots managed, even though the top of their order was coming up.

Tommy Caple struck out, Ortega popped up to first base and Bigley -- a power hitter with three home runs and 12 RBIs in 15 games -- went down swinging on three breaking balls.

"At the beginning of the season I was hitting a lot of fastballs so people are coming at me with sliders and off-speed stuff," Bigley said. "I've just gotta be patient. My last few at-bats I wasn't very patient."

And Basch wasn't very hittable.

"He threw strikes and he threw low strikes," Pilots manager Bob Miller said. "And that's the first time we've had a look at that sidearm, submarine-type (pitching) angle."

Basch gave the Pilots one final chance in the ninth inning when he walked Nicholson. Caple hit a ground ball to shortstop that the Panners tried to turn into a double play, but second baseman Ryan Haag bobbled the ball and had to settle for the force at second. Haag redeemed himself with the next batter when Ortega hit into a game-ending 6-4-3 double play.

Basch had a worthy counterpart in Bigley, who started the game as the designated hitter and took the mound with two on and two out in the second inning. By then, Pawelk (2-1) had given up four runs on five hits and had runners at first and second, but Bigley stopped the rally by getting Haag on a ground out.

Bigley retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced and scattered five hits over 61/3 shutout innings. It was the first time he'd pitched in 18 days.

"I felt fresh. I felt good," Bigley said. "Even though I haven't pitched, I've been going to the bullpen and throwing every day."

Bigley is a starter at Oral Roberts University, so at least he is used to throwing deep into a game. That's not the case for Basch, who on Thursday threw more than 100 pitches for the first time in what seemed like forever. After his third full inning, his warmup pitches became soft tosses to the catcher.

"I didn't want to wear myself out on warmups," he said.

Sports editor Beth Bragg can be reached at bbragg@adn.com.