Parkinson fans career-high 10 for Williamsport

David Parkinson had eight relief appearances before his first professional start Sunday, and he realized his prior outings didn't prepare him for one thing -- pitching out of the windup. 
"Out of the 'pen, even in the beginning of the inning, I've been out of the stretch," the Phillies southpaw said. "In the 'pen, say you're working from the stretch and you get hot, so you kind of stick to that. ... I think it's more mental than anything else. It's different."
Quickly settling into a longer delivery, Parkinson fanned a career-high 10 batters, allowing one hit and three walks over five scoreless innings, but Class A Short Season Williamsport fell to Batavia, 4-3, in the second game of a doubleheader at Dwyer Stadium. 

Box score
The 21-year-old threw a first-pitch strike to 11 of 19 batters and tossed 53 of 84 overall pitches for strikes. Even though he hadn't made a start since May 20 for the University of Mississippi, Parkinson felt in control most of the afternoon. 
"I'm feeling pretty good, it's hard not to feel good after something like that," he said. "I don't think it there were much nerves honestly. If anything I was more calm than I was coming out for the first time. I was able to focus in more." 
While he didn't catch much of the Muckdogs' 6-5 victory in the first game of the twinbill, Parkinson picked up a reliable scouting report from some of his teammates before taking the hill in Game 2.
"First off, we have a pretty good gameplan going into most games," he said. "Kyle Young and Julian Garcia both faced this team before me. I just kind of went over to them and asked what they took back from their starts and what they saw. They told me the guys that hunt fastballs, the guys that couldn't really handle the fastball. I kind of based it off that."
Things got off to a slow start when leadoff man Mathew Brooks walked and reached second on a wayward pickoff attempt from the 12th-round pick in the June Draft. Two batters later, No. 13 Marlins prospect Thomas Jones reached on a free pass, but Parkinson waded through the traffic by fanning Lazaro Alonso and inducing a flyout from Tyler Curtis.

Getting more comfortable with his windup, the Virginia native set down the next seven hitters before Alonso doubled with one out in the fourth. Using his entire arsenal, Parkinson punched out Curtis and Sean Reynolds to end the inning. 
"Basically what I was seeing was that they were really hunting the fastball early in the count," he said. "I kind of took that and worked with that. Even though I did throw a lot of first-pitch fastballs today, I mixed in some off-speed early to keep them off balance. I was able to change the eye level with the fastball and it kind of worked. 
"[My off-speed] was really effective. Deeper into the game, I got a feel for all of my pitches. I think, at the beginning of the game, I just had my slider and then I started working in my changeup and my curveball later, which was a game-changer because when I have the slider early in the counts to lefties, they had already seen that once or twice. And that curveball was a little different and kept them off balance."
Parkinson worked around a walk to David Gauntt in the fifth and capped off his outing with three more strikeouts. As he walked back to the dugout after the frame, the 6-foot-2, 210-pound lefty wasn't aware he had reached double-digits in whiffs for the first time.
"I knew I had a few, but I didn't know how many it was until I was out of the game," Parkinson said. "My pitching coach, Hector Berrios, came up to me and said, 'Congratulations, good job. You had 10 strikeouts.' I was like, 'Oh, wow.' I wasn't expecting that." 
The Ole Miss product, who sports a 2.25 ERA with 31 strikeouts through 24 innings, feels more prepared to go deeper during future outings. 
"Everything is a confidence builder, even when you're bad, it's a confidence builder because you're that much closer to having a good outing," Parkinson said. "You're going to have bad outings here and there. But this one feels good, it definitely gives me something to work with, especially with my off-speed." 
While the Crosscutters are on the road in Batavia, there's been action at BB&T Ballpark in Williamsport with Cardinals playing the Pirates in the Little League Classic. Parkinson said he and his teammates are thrilled to see their home field get some national attention. 
"It's awesome," he said. "Actually one of our guys saw a picture of Andrew McCutchen using his locker and he was like, 'Oh man, this is awesome.' It's so cool." 
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While Parkinson fell a few wins short of reaching the Little League World Series in Williamsport in 2008, he's plenty happy to be playing in the city as a professional. 
"It's pretty cool," he said. "Even before I signed in professional baseball, I heard from guys that it's a grind and all this stuff. But so far, I'm loving it. I get to show up to a job where I get to play baseball. It's pretty awesome." 
Alonso went 3-for-6 with a double and three runs scored in the doubleheader, while No. 23 Marlins prospect Ricardo Cespedes collected two hits and drove in a run in the opener.