Noah Schultz is in that awkward baseball space where development and desperation are colliding in real time. One week before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, the White Sox are first place and still hunting starting pitching help, while their 22-year-old left-hander is trying to prove that his season is about more than a rough 6.04 ERA.
That is the tension here. Schultz has been viewed as a highly regarded prospect for a reason, and the White Sox have not suddenly forgotten that his slider was once considered one of the best individual pitches in the minors. But this is also not a case where reputation can do all the work for him. He has made 12 major league starts, the results have not been clean, and the conversation around him is now about whether the stuff is translating fast enough.
On Friday, Schultz worked on his slider in a bullpen session after last Tuesday’s outing against the Yankees, when he threw the pitch eight times and did not get a called strike or a whiff on it. That is the kind of detail that matters because it cuts straight to the point: the pitch he is supposed to lean on has not been enough of a weapon lately. If the slider is flat, the rest of the package has to carry too much of the load.
The slider is the story, not the excuse
White Sox coach Zach Bove made clear that this is not about hiding Schultz from the truth. “We focused on just getting the -- he calls it the slider, it’s the curveball -- getting consistent depth on that pitch, getting it down under [barrels],” Bove said. He also pointed to the shape the team wants, saying the target is -4 to -6 of induced vertical break. In other words, the pitch is being adjusted because the current version is not doing enough damage.
Bove also defended the broader development curve by noting, “He’s a baby giraffe, he’s 22, he literally is still growing.” That is a vivid way of saying the obvious: Schultz is still figuring out his body, his mechanics and the way his pitches fit together. The White Sox are not pretending that a 22-year-old left-hander should already be a finished product. They are asking for signs that the ceiling is real.
And there are still reasons to believe. Schultz has a 32.9 percent miss rate, and opponents are slugging.629 against him, which is a brutal combination that explains why his line looks so messy. He has also allowed the 42nd highest contact rate among 192 MLB pitchers over 50 innings, and the White Sox coaches said he did not have much batted-ball luck in his last start in Texas. So this is not simply a story of one pitch gone missing. It is a broader reminder that major league hitters will expose even elite prospects if the weaponry is not sharp enough.
Still, the pressure is getting louder. Schultz said, “There’s really only one way to move in this situation,” and that sounds exactly right for a player in his spot. He also put it more bluntly: “Pressure is a privilege. It’s something to get into this situation, but it’s fight or flight, natural selection, and people survive. You’ve got to prove how you stand and sustain a position.” That is not a young pitcher sounding overwhelmed. It is one trying to talk himself through the next step.
The White Sox may be first place, but that only sharpens the stakes. If they are serious about adding starting pitching help, Schultz’s season is being judged in a more complicated way than a simple wins-and-losses column would suggest. He has thrown 50 innings, and his professional career-high is only two or three starts away. So the club is watching development, workload and results all at once.
In that sense, Noah Schultz and the White Sox are living through the same question: how much patience is justified, and how much urgency is unavoidable? His own words suggest he understands the answer. “This year I’ve been a six or seven-pitch pitcher,” he said, which only reinforces the bigger point. The arsenal is still being built. The deadline is approaching anyway.
