Pregame notes: Rookie rubber match

Noah Schultz will try to seal up the White Sox fifth series victory out of their last six opportunities, and will try to do so in just his fifth career start.

Yet by innings, Schultz is the more experienced arm at work on Wednesday, as the Angels are using 22-year-old right-hander Walbert Ureña, who has walked 13 in 16 1/3 innings. Ureña averages 98 mph on his heater, but his secondaries (changeup, sweeper) are the bat-missers in his arsenal due to vulnerable fastball shape. He's hard throwing with a short arm action, but also gets low extension and the compact delivery hasn't translated to consistent strikes. He quite clearly profiles as a future reliever and only has 14 career innings in Triple-A, but hey, the Angels do interesting things and anyone on this thread can recall an instance where a rookie with an odd operation flummoxed a White Sox lineup.

Schultz's strikeout-to-walk numbers (20 to 12 in 21 1/3 innings) aren't the prettiest, but his outing have been defined by.a certain collection of mature qualities.

"Two outings in a row he wasn't landing the sweeper, which is one of his strengths," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "But he was able to get through with more changeups, sinkers moving arm side and the four-seam, and the cutter's been a good pitch since he's added it back. There's been some outings where he didn't throw a lot of changeups, but he was still able to work through just going. hard.

In a perfect world you just have all your pitches going that day, but that just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen even to the really good guys. Being able to pivot, making sure your other pitches are good enough to get through a lineup two, three times, Noah has those qualities, for sure."

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Drew Romo gets two starts out of a three-game series for the second-straight time.

First pitch: White Sox at Angels

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM

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