White Sox, Schultz win a laffer over Padres, 8-2

Noah Schultz was utterly brilliant over six innings on Friday, earning his second career win. | Denis Poroy-Imagn Images The White Sox have been worse than . 500 all season long, so declaring them a must-watch team seems a bit hyperbolic.

But Friday’s 8-2 annihilation of a Padres team very strong out of the gate — 5 1/2 games better than Chicago entering play — touched on the three players most likely to make you stop whatever you’re doing and stare. First off, and most substantially, it was a masterpiece start by Noah Schultz, in just his fourth career outing — although it didn’t begin as such. Schultz’s outing began miserably, a miserable first inning that found the wunderkind southpaw walking two Padres on, balking the runners to second and third, and then filling the bases with a third walk.

However, the lefty attacked Ty France with three straight fastballs for strikes, generating a ground out to escape the jam. And from there, that was all she wrote. After throwing just 15 of 29 pitches for strikes in the first, Schultz melted through the next three innings with 20-of-27 strikes, one single and zero walks.

Even better, Padres starter Germán Márquez, who’d already had a sloppy and inefficient first frame, was even worse in the second, issuing four walks. Three of those walks scored on a Sam Antonacci single, Andrew Benintendi sac fly and an Austin Hayes ground out. Then, with two on and two out with a full count, Munetaka Murakami took over the MLB lead in home runs and gave the White Sox a 6-0 lead with a no-doubter to right-center: View Link Our second must-watch player continues to place himself in rare air in MLB history.