Sheffield keeps cooking with Travelers

Justus Sheffield keeps cruising with Double-A Arkansas.
Seattle's ninth-ranked prospect tossed six scoreless innings, working around four hits while striking out six, as Double-A Arkansas shut down Northwest Arkansas, 6-1, on Tuesday at Dickey-Stephens Park.

Gameday box score
Since being assigned to the Texas League, the 23-year-old has made 10 starts for the Travelers, lasting at least six innings nine times and without giving up more than two earned runs each time out. He sports a 1.49 ERA with 71 punchouts and 14 walks over 66 1/3 frames since June 18.
"I feel like I am in a pretty good spot," Sheffield recently told mynorthwest.com. "When I am on the mound, I just feel good. I had to take a step back, but sometimes in life you have got to do that. ... I feel like it actually has been a positive step forward for me and I just have to continue to build off where I am right now."
Against the Naturals, Sheffield (5-2) faced the minimum through three innings, benefiting as catcher Joseph Odom threw out Dairon Blanco trying to steal second base after he led off the game with a single.
The only trouble the left-hander encountered was in the fourth after D.J. Burt lined a one-out single on a full count. Burt promptly stole second and third for his 22nd and 23rd thefts of the season, but Sheffield escaped unscathed by whiffing Royals No. 30 prospectGabriel Cancel and getting 19th-ranked Emmanuel Rivera to bounce to shortstop.

The 2014 first-round pick needed only eight pitches to get through the fifth and 12 more in the sixth. He ended up throwing 73, including 53 for strikes. It marked the second time during this stint with the Travelers that he posted a scoreless outing of at least six innings.
"I looked back at some film from Spring Training, saw some things that I wasn't doing, that I kind of got away from," he told mynorthwest.com. "It [stunk] that it took a little bit of time to get back to it, but it's finally there and I am just having fun with these guys."
Utah Jones went 3-for-4 and capped Arkansas' scoring with an RBI double in the eighth. Seattle's No. 4 prospect Evan White and Luis Liberato each contributed two hits, with White scoring a run in his first game off the injured list since being struck in the face during batting practice. Logan Taylor drove in a pair of runs and 10th-ranked Kyle Lewis laced an RBI double in the fifth.