Noah Schultz’s rookie season keeps serving up the same harsh lesson for the Chicago White Sox: the talent is obvious, but the results are still lagging behind.
On Tuesday night against the Texas Rangers, the 22-year-old never found his footing. Schultz was knocked out in the fourth inning after allowing five earned runs in 3 2/3 innings, needing 80 pitches just to get 11 outs. Texas jumped on him right away, with Wyatt Langford opening the game with a single and the Rangers piling up 11 hits against him overall, including a home run by Brandon Nimmo.
That outing fit a troubling pattern. Schultz has not finished six innings since May 1 against the San Diego Padres, and in 12 starts this season he has failed to get through five innings six times. The White Sox have dropped five of his last six starts.
For a rookie, the ups and downs come with the territory. But Schultz’s growing pains land differently now because Chicago is trying to stay in the race. Entering Wednesday, the White Sox and Cleveland Guardians were tied atop the AL Central, with the Seattle Mariners just two games ahead of them for the American League’s final wild card spot.
The health piece still hangs over everything, too. Schultz missed a month on the injured list with right patellar tendinitis after dealing with a similar issue in the minors last season, and that problem got worse when he tried to pitch through it, costing him several weeks.
Even with the rough edges, the upside remains impossible to miss. Schultz brings a deceptive low three-quarters arm slot, a wipeout slider and a fastball that can reach the upper 90s. The issue is that the production has not matched the stuff.
One detail that stands out is his extension, or rather the lack of it. For a pitcher listed at 6’10, Schultz works with a surprisingly compact delivery. He begins from a neutral position, rotates his upper half as he uncoils toward the plate, and takes a relatively short stride.
Height alone does not guarantee extension, but pitchers with longer frames and bigger wingspans usually have more room to create it. Getting the ball out closer to home plate matters because it cuts down hitter reaction time and can make a fastball play several miles per hour faster than the radar gun says.
Schultz, though, has not fully tapped into that advantage. Pitchers who are 6-foot-10 or taller typically average between 6.8 and 7.2 feet of extension, while Schultz sits at 6.3 feet, which ranks in the 30th percentile among MLB pitchers.
That is probably not changing soon. Schultz was considered a polished pitcher when the White Sox called him up from Triple-A Charlotte, and stretching his stride much more would mean reworking the mechanics that got him to the majors in the first place.
Still, almost everything has gone sideways for him so far. His expected ERA, strikeout rate, walk rate, whiff rate and ground-ball rate all sit near the bottom of the league, and he has not come close to matching the swing-and-miss numbers he posted so consistently in the minors.
The struggles are understandable for a rookie. But timing matters, and the White Sox do not have the luxury of treating this as pure development anymore.
If they are going to make a playoff push, they need Schultz to become more than a promising arm. They need him to turn into a reliable major league starter.
In Other News...
White Sox Hit Another Low Point In Blowout That Got Bizarre
Noah Schultzs night against the Texas Rangers started badly and never really found a floor, with the White Sox left-hander getting tagged for 10 runs on 11 hits in 3 2/3 innings while issuing no walks. Chicago was already in trouble before the game reached its oddest turns, and the offense offered almost nothing in a 10-0 loss that left the Sox out-hit 18-3 and added another shutout to a season full of them.
Trevor Richards and Tyler Schweitzer only deepened the damage in relief, combining to give up seven hits and five runs as the Rangers kept stacking traffic and extra-base damage. By the time the game drifted into the late innings, the White Sox were chasing a mess that had gone from ugly to unusual, and the final score only hinted at how quickly it had slipped away. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Are Starting To See A Different Murakami At The Plate
Munetaka Murakamis return has given the White Sox a different look at the plate, and not just because he is back in the lineup after a long absence. The club has gone 6-2 since he rejoined, and even with a batting average that still lags behind where he wants it, there have been encouraging signs in the way he is working counts and making better contact.
Murakami has drawn a walk in seven straight games, a small but meaningful marker for a team trying to balance a division race with player development and injury management. The power is still there in flashes, too, which is part of why the White Sox seem to believe the version they are seeing now may be closer to the one they can count on down the stretch. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Farm Night Brings One Encouraging Charlotte Sign
Charlottes night offered the White Sox system its most encouraging note, even if the rest of the farm report was a mixed bag. The Knights pulled out a 7-6 win over Norfolk after a comeback that gave the organization a glimpse of some needed offense, while Birmingham took a rough 13-4 loss to Montgomery and the other affiliates split their own lopsided results across the board.
The Charlotte rally was the one worth circling for White Sox followers, especially with rehabbing big leaguer Austin Hays in the middle of it and Andy Weber and Nolan Jones also helping push the Knights back into the game. Elsewhere, the Barons were buried by a pitching staff that couldnt stop Montgomery from piling on, while Kannapolis and Winston-Salem each had their own stretches of resistance before the game flow tilted away from them. [Read more 🡒]