{"id":618668,"date":"2026-04-20T06:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T06:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618668\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T06:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T06:57:24","slug":"chicago-white-sox-starter-noah-schultz-collects-1st-mlb-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618668\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox starter Noah Schultz collects 1st MLB win"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Chicago White Sox starter Noah Schultz<\/a> earned his first major-league victory on Sunday, allowing one run over five innings in a 7-4 win against the Athletics in front of 12,070 at Sutter Health Park.<\/p>\n

He received plenty of offensive support, with Derek Hill (solo), Miguel Vargas (two-run), Munetaka Murakami (two-run) and Colson Montgomery (solo) hitting home runs. The Sox held on to win two of three in the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great team win, a great series win,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cHopeful to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are three takeaways from the series.<\/p>\n

1. Noah Schultz was locked in.
\n\"ChicagoChicago White Sox pitcher Noah Schultz throws to the Athletics during the first inning of a game Sunday, April 19, 2026, in West Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo\/Sara Nevis)<\/p>\n

Schultz displayed a strong command in his 82-pitch outing. He allowed one hit, a home run to Darell Hern\u00e1iz in the second inning, struck out six and walked one.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to fill up the zone,\u201d Schultz said of what worked on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Schultz struck out at least one batter in each of his final four innings of work on Sunday, including recording two strikeouts in both the second and fourth innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cNoah was really good,\u201d manager Will Venable said. \u201cGot back to the fastball, that\u2019s obviously among his best weapons. And really got to that and did a nice job of mixing the four-seamer, the two-seamer. Ended up landing some sweepers in the zone, the cutter was in the zone, which is a big pitch for him, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schultz learned a lot going from his first big-league start on Tuesday<\/a> to his second on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearned a lot about myself, a lot of things,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cCalm myself down with nerves, and stuff like that, that hopefully are gone. Getting ahead of guys and attacking hitters.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Saturday\u2019s 11th inning featured an interesting debate.
\n\"TheThe Athletics’ Jacob Wilson, left, and Lawrence Butler, right, celebrate with Max Muncy after he hit a walk-off sacrifice fly during the 11th inning against the White Sox on Saturday, April 18, 2026, in West Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo\/Sara Nevis)<\/p>\n

The Sox faced an interesting dilemma in the 11th inning on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Athletics had the potential game-winning run on third with one out and Max Muncy at the plate. Lawrence Butler was on deck, followed by the pitcher\u2019s slot that came into existence when Hern\u00e1iz ran for catcher Austin Wynns in the 10th and the Athletics moved Shea Langeliers from designated hitter to behind the plate.<\/p>\n

The Athletics had utilized all of their position players off the bench. Did the Sox consider walking Muncy and Butler to load the bases to face a pitcher?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s a tough one,\u201d Venable said before Sunday\u2019s game. \u201cAs we were thinking about that, as I\u2019m thinking about that and talking it through, we were just in a situation with (reliever Lucas) Sims in kind of a big spot with the bases loaded, and against Tampa (Bay) had a couple walks there (in Thursday\u2019s 5-3 loss<\/a>), I just wasn\u2019t comfortable putting him in that situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so it was hoping for some spin to expand against Muncy there, then walk Butler and deal with the pitcher in a first-and-third situation with two outs. Obviously, that\u2019s not what happened. That was the calculus, and one of those that didn\u2019t work out, but that\u2019s kind of what my mindset was and thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sox decided to pitch to Muncy, who brought home Jacob Wilson with a game-ending sacrifice fly to left field as the Athletics won 7-6<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Munetaka Murakami had a grand series.
\n\"MunetakaMunetaka Murakami of the Chicago White Sox is congratulated by teammates after he hit a grand slam against the Athletics in the seventh inning at Sutter Health Park on April 17, 2026, in West Sacramento, Calif. (Ezra Shaw\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Sox starting pitcher Davis Martin described Murakami\u2019s grand slam in the seventh inning of Friday\u2019s 9-2 victory<\/a> as \u201cincredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuy\u2019s got stupid juice, came at the right time when we needed it,\u201d Martin said Friday night.<\/p>\n

Murakami cleared the center field batter\u2019s eye for his first major-league slam. It went an estimated 431 feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I got more than 431,\u201d Venable said before Saturday\u2019s game. \u201cI don\u2019t know who\u2019s doing that calculation, but that ball was touched right there. That was a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The slam capped a three-hit night for Murakami.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividually, it\u2019s really big for me to hit a grand slam,\u201d Murakami said through an interpreter on Friday. \u201cAs well as put additional points on that board. Both ways, I\u2019m really happy with the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murakami homered again on Saturday, this time leading off the seventh inning. Earlier in Saturday\u2019s game, the Sox got home runs from Montgomery (solo) and Andrew Benintendi (three-run).<\/p>\n

The home runs continued for Murakami and the Sox on Sunday. Hill (solo) and Vargas (two-run) both homered in the second inning. Murakami connected for a two-run home run to right, which went 425 feet, in the fifth inning. He has eight home runs this season.<\/p>\n

Montgomery homered later in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love having all the points come up from all the lineup and everybody contributing to the team,\u201d Murakami said after Sunday\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Chicago White Sox starter Noah Schultz earned his first major-league victory on Sunday, allowing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[5654,64,63,5256,66850,591,6784,128516,250893,7184,85,262869],"class_list":{"0":"post-618668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-chicago-white-sox","12":"tag-lucas-sims","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-mlb-baseball","15":"tag-munetaka-murakami","16":"tag-noah-schultz","17":"tag-sacramento","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-will-venable"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}