Because few pitchers have ever been so tall, thrown so hard and produced enough strikes, it's natural to compare Noah Schultz to Randy Johnson, even when conceding the standards are impossible to match.
"I understand the comparison, I think that would be natural," said Chris Getz, when the comp was predictably invoked on Tuesday.
In his major league debut on Tuesday, Schultz reminded me more of another lefty who made his first-ever MLB start for the White Sox, and it's not the other one with the long levers and low-slot delivery, and who also sets an unhelpfully high bar.
At the end of August 2012, José Quintana rolled into Camden Yards to face the Orioles. He was building a credible out-of-nowhere Rookie of the Year case with a 2.86 ERA over his first 110 MLB innings, and he furthered the agenda by retiring the first eight Baltimore hitters he faced.
But ninth-hitting Taylor Teagarden spoiled the perfect game, no-hit bid and shutout by sending a 2-0 fastball out toward Eutaw Street, and from that point forward, the night -- and most of the remainder of the season -- was a struggle. He gave up two more runs before recording the third out of the third, then he failed to make it out of the fourth, then he didn't make it out of the second inning against the Twins his next time out, and the Sox eased him through the rest of the schedule afterward.
The reason why Quintana was so successful out of the gate is because he was unusually adept at pitching inside, especially for a 23-year-old who was never considered a top prospect. The reason why the Orioles (and eventually the league) solved him was that he didn't have anything reliably arm-side -- not a changeup, not a back-door cutter, not even a regular four-seam fastball. Eventually the righties came to the plate preparing to "hit with short arms," as Hawk Harrelson used to say, and it wasn't until the following season, after a full winter of work, that Quintana honed his command to make opponents cover both sides of the plate.
That same thing happened with Schultz on Tuesday, except with the advancements in data, the adjustments no longer take months. They can happen within innings.
That Quintana start from 14 seasons ago came to mind when Ryan Vilade pulled a 97.4 mph fastball in off the plate to left field for the game's first run.
In isolation, that looks like a well-executed pitch that Vilade was fortunate to foil. In the context of his plate appearance, it was the fourth consecutive pitch that Vilade had seen inside, and Schultz had missed in that direction while walking the previous two batters during a tumultuous first frame.
And while Schultz eventually calmed his nerves to return to the strike zone over the remaining 3⅓ innings of his start, he never gained access to the entire zone. Just like the rookie version of Quintana, he left the outer half of the plate to righties largely untouched, including an absence of changeups.
The simplest explanation is that Schultz was nervous. Overthrowing shows up in his pitch data, especially early; his fastball usually doesn't sit 98, and his slider -- which major league Statcast calls a sweeper -- usually tops out at 83, not 85.
He also just up and said it after the game, telling reporters things like...
"There were nerves in the first inning and nerves the whole time."
... and ...
"After the first inning, it was a lot easier to settle into stuff. The nerves calmed down a little bit. I thank the guys in the dugout for helping me through that."
... and additionally ...
"I don’t think I had my best slider tonight. I learned that after the first inning. Had to use the other pitches I have, and I’m happy to have them at my service whenever I need them. A lot of stuff to work on."
Consequently, if Edgar Quero understood that Schultz wasn't going to locate anything away on a reliable basis, then he had to call for harder stuff inside, because missing inner-half with slower stuff at Rate Field often ends up over the White Sox bullpen. Once Schultz stopped handing out free passes, he was able to survive, if not quite thrive.
"We just got ahead of the hitters with cutters a little bit more, controlling the zone a little bit more with the cutter," Quero said. "His confidence got a little bit better too with the fastball later and that's what we used."
What White Sox fans saw in Schultz's debut was basically his pre-2025 form, with the obvious strengths (velocity and strike-throwing from the most unusual of builds) and subtler weaknesses (more contact than expected, especially when his slider isn't working).
What White Sox fans should hope to see is the guy who dominated Triple-A hitters over his first three starts this season, because that success incorporated the ingredients his MLB debut lacked. For example, here's his Statcast start in his previous start for Charlotte against Memphis:
That pitch chart features sparing use of the cutter, with everything else picking up the slack -- two-seamers for strikes, high four-seam fastballs in and away, back-door sweepers, a handful of changeups. As the excessive adrenaline recedes and he regains his feel for toggling velocities, the favorable counts and swinging strikes should theoretically come with it.
Now, there might be eventually cause to revisit such optimism. If he was throwing his entire arsenal over the whole zone and still getting tagged, that'd throw some flags. Likewise, if he logs a few more starts and he isn't able to evolve out of survival mode, then the White Sox might have to start considering the best path toward a reset.
For the time being, it's only one start, and one that represented the culmination of a life's work in front of family and friends preceded by two days of hype and eight hours of pregame programming, so I wouldn't expect overcharged circumstances to produce normal results. Schultz was able to put his debut in the books, but there was plenty he didn't accomplish on Tuesday. If he eats like most college-aged men who went through massive growth spurts in high school and still might not be done growing, he probably won't make a habit of leaving that much meat on the bone.
