Top prospect Noah Schultz stumbles but settles down in bumpy White Sox debut

Before Noah Schultz’s MLB debut on Tuesday 45 miles away from the suburban high school where his left arm put him on the map, general manager Chris Getz acknowledged there would be “some challenges and some adversity along the way” for the White Sox’ top pitching prospect.

The growing pains came sooner than anyone would’ve liked, least of all Schultz, who introduced himself to the major leagues with a rocky 33-pitch first inning that saw him struggling to find the strike zone — but still flashing the stuff that has propped up the hopes of a rebuilding team.

The 6-10 hurler dashed onto the mound in front of 14,648 at Rate Field, which sounded a lot more crowded thanks to the hundreds of family, friends and supporters who made the short trip from the western burbs to see the Oswego East High School product’s first MLB appearance.

By the time Schultz returned to the Sox dugout with his first MLB inning and strikeout under his belt, he’d also notched his first two walks, first hit surrendered, a costly first throwing error and a 3-0 deficit.

But the 22-year-old rebounded admirably on a night the Sox bullpen struggled more than he did in an 8-5 loss to Tampa Bay.

Schultz finally started looking like the ace of the future after a lineout from Chandler Simpson, blowing away center fielder Jonny DeLuca on three straight pitches. The momentum carried over to a three-up-three-down, 11-pitch second inning.

Schultz fanned Aranda for his second career K to open the third before walking Caminero and surrendering another single. There was some light movement in the Sox bullpen until Schultz caught Caminero darting off second for the second out of the inning, but then the rookie starter served up an RBI double to Williamson.

Sox reliever Lucas Sims was warming up by the top of the fourth inning, when Schultz notched another strikeout and walk in an otherwise clean inning. Schultz got an assist from third baseman Miguel Vargas, who stayed with a grounder that initially bounced off his glove before he got it to Munetaka Murakami, who made a nice pick at first.

Schultz got Aranda again to open the fifth inning before manager Will Venable called it a night for him — not a pretty one for baseball’s No. 7-ranked lefty prospect, but one that certainly could have fallen farther off the rails and could’ve looked a lot different without the two-run error.

The Aurora native’s first career pitching line went 4 ⅓ innings with four runs, three earned, on three hits and four walks to go with four strikeouts, for a 6.23 ERA. He threw 82 pitches, 51 for strikes.

Schultz left the game in line for the loss trailing 4-3, with outfielder Everson Pereira’s three-run homer supplying the Sox’ offense. Munetaka Murakami did his best to get Schultz off the hook with a two-run blast in the ninth inning.

Before the game, Getz called Schultz’s debut “a big step” in the rebuild, and said while there’d inevitably be bumps in the road, if “the stuff remains what it has been here recently and what it’s been in the past, he’s gonna have success.”

“We view Noah as a frontline starter at the major-league level, and we feel like the time is now,” Getz said. “We know that it’s not always a smooth transition to pitch in the big leagues, so we anticipate that there’s going to be some challenges and some adversity along the way, and that’s OK. We’re here to support him, but he’s a guy that’s worked tremendously hard on his body, his pitch arsenal and his ability to compete and feel like he’s ready for this.”