MWL notes: Tribe's Sheffield cooking up K's

Lake County starting pitcher Justus Sheffield, who is 19, leaned against the stadium wall after shagging batting practice fly balls and laughed at the idea that he would be able to call his older brother Jordan, a pitcher at Vanderbilt University, a "rookie" in the near future.

"Don't tell him that," Justus said with a younger brother's secretive smirk. "He won't think that's funny."

Justus Sheffield, a 5-foot-10, 196-pound left-handed pitcher, was selected by Cleveland in the first round of the 2014 Major League Baseball Draft. Sheffield is 7-2 for Lake County with a 4.23 ERA.

Jordan Sheffield is a right-handed pitcher for national power Vanderbilt and was 5-2 with a 2.85 ERA as a redshirt freshman.

Justus committed to Vanderbilt and hoped to play on the same team as his brother Jordan, but a first-round selection and $1.6 million signing bonus made the dream of playing together take a detour. Now Justus is eagerly awaiting the day his brother's name gets called in the MLB Draft, and he's hopeful it will be with the Tribe.

"My brother and I are really close," Justus Sheffield said. "We always played the same sports growing up. We were usually on the same field. At the same time, we were rooting for each other, like in high school, but we also fed off of each other's competitiveness. If he hit a home run, I wanted to hit a grand slam. If he threw a no-hitter, I wanted to throw a perfect game. It was always like that -- back-and-forth, back-and-forth. He and my mom and dad are all a part of my success and the reason why I'm here.

"We're always on the phone or FaceTiming. It was tough being away from him at first, but with technology it's easier to stay in touch. With Jordan going to Vanderbilt, one of the top schools in the nation, he's learned so much about pitching. He's a lot smoother than he was when he was in high school. I've learned a lot from my first year in pro ball. We always pick each other's brains. We try to help each other out as much as we can. We talk about getting ahead of batters, mostly not walking guys."

Dinner time at the Sheffield table usually centered around baseball. Those were the moments, in particular, that Justus missed when he started his pro career in 2014.

"The transition hasn't been easy," Sheffield said. "Probably one of the toughest things for me was being away from home for so long. When you're on your own, you have to learn on your own, you have to rely on your teammates, especially the older guys, to know what to do."

Sheffield said that he has also had to learn the science of pitching.

"In high school, the coach calls the pitches for you," Sheffield said. "Then you get here, you have to know what pitches to throw, where to throw them, what counts. ... Every time I step on the mound, it's a learning process. I'll do some things that are good, and then I do some things that don't work well, but I learn from them, and that's the beauty of this game. You learn every day."

Lake County pitching coach Steve Karsay said that Sheffield has made tremendous strides.

"Justus is a 19-year-old in low-A ball, but he's well beyond his years in pitching," Karsay said. "His stuff is up there, obviously, with a lot of high-round picks. It's just a matter of more maturation as a pitcher. In high school, you can just reach back and throw the ball by guys, or throw a slider that bounces and the batter will swing. At this level, I think Justus has learned how to value location and pitch a little bit more by changing speeds and disrupting hitters' timing, because if you corner them into a fastball count, a lot of these guys are going to be able to hit a 92- or 94-mile-an-hour fastball.

"Justus has done a fabulous job of evolving and becoming that pitcher that we all expect him to be. He's gained that knowledge a little bit faster than a lot of people thought he was going to be able to, and it's starting to translate a little bit more into the games that he's been starting."

In brief

Fernandez debut: Pablo Fernandez was promoted to the Great Lakes Loons by the Dodgers and turned in an impressive debut. Switched from a reliever to a starter, Fernandez worked four innings on Sunday -- the 6-foot-1, 25-year-old right-hander gave up one run on four hits. He struck out four and did not walk a batter. Fernandez signed for an $8 million bonus in March out of Cuba.

Draft boost: The Peoria Chiefs got a boost from the 2015 Draft when the Cardinals sent them their third-round and fourth-round picks. Harrison Bader, an outfielder, and Paul DeJong, a third-baseman, joined Peoria in the last week. DeJong played on the Dozer Park field as a member of the Illinois State University baseball team when the Redbirds played against Bradley University. Bader, who played at the University of Florida, is the highest Draft pick sent to Peoria in the same season he was drafted since 2009, when Cubs first-rounder Brett Jackson played in Peoria.

Home-field advantage: Kane County is off to a torrid start in the second half. The Cougars are 16-3. Kane County has racked up 16 wins in its last 17 home games and has won 21 of its past 24 contests overall.