Aurora native Noah Schultz brings hometown edge to White Sox debut

Noah Schultz, the White Sox’ top pitching prospect, hasn’t come all that far from the family Wiffle ball games he played growing up in Aurora.

Only 45 miles or so, in fact, by the time he towers over the mound at Rate Field for his major-league debut Tuesday, carrying a good chunk of the rebuilding Sox’ hopes with his left arm.

And while the limbs on Schultz’s staggering 6-10 frame have grown longer, he’s still the same fiercely competitive kid who never backed down from a backyard contest with older sisters Ashley and Emily, according to their mother, Kim Schultz.

‘‘Very competitive family,’’ she said on the eve of her son’s first big-league start. ‘‘The Wiffle ball in the backyard, the arguing — really, the competition just was always high.’’

You might not get that impression from the soft-spoken Schultz right away — at least once you get over his imposing stature. But his mom knows it’s what first made him a star at Oswego East High School, then a first-round draft pick for the Sox in 2022 and now one of the most-anticipated arrivals in baseball, rated No. 46 by MLB Pipeline.

‘‘He’s just a different person out there, and that’s what needs to happen: He’s got to focus,’’ Kim Schultz said. ‘‘He’s probably just really, really excited and probably jumping out of his skin, but he’s got a really good knack of really focusing when he gets out there and gets the ball.’’

That wasn’t a concern when Schultz found out Saturday he had been called up from Triple-A Charlotte.

‘‘Super-excited and just pretty much screaming,’’ Kim Schultz said of her son, who grew up a Dodgers fan, thanks to his dad, Larry. ‘‘Literally a 15-second phone call, and he was on a plane the next day.

‘‘He’s a pretty quiet kid, shy kid. But I see the spurts of the 22-year-old. He’s still young and does kid stuff. But he’s a big kid.’’

Just ask the 248 hitters Schultz struck out in the minors en route to the Sox, usually with a four-seam fastball that tops out at 99 mph or a devastating slider that invites comparisons to that of Hall of Famer Randy Johnson — with whom Schultz will be tied as second-tallest player to suit up for a major-league squad.

‘‘He’s an electric guy; he’s an electric pitcher,’’ said Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery, who played with Schultz at Charlotte and knows a thing or two about shouldering big expectations. ‘‘We’ve all seen it for so long. We are all ready for it. We know he’s a true competitor.’’

Manager Will Venable said that while the Sox are monitoring Schultz’s innings, their potential ace of the future isn’t just coming up for a big-league cup of coffee after striking out 19 hitters in 14 Triple-A innings this spring.

‘‘The plan is not to bring him up and send him back out [to Charlotte],’’ Venable said. ‘‘The thought is that we bring him up here when he’s ready and go and let him do his thing. He’s about as nice a guy and polite a guy as can be, but he does have an edge when he goes out there.’’

Schultz will have an extra home-field advantage for his first outing, with some 250 supporters in attendance, including the entire Oswego East baseball team and the big sisters who schooled him in the backyard. (Emily played softball at Stanford, Ashley at Northwestern.)

‘‘We’ve had a lot of support along the way, and you have to have that — supportive parents, sisters, family, uncles, aunts, trainers, high school, everyone,’’ Kim Schultz said. ‘‘Everyone really kept their eye out for him, which was so helpful. This is a team effort, for sure.

‘‘I’d say I’m nervous for him, but I’m really not. I’m like: ‘You did it. You got it. You got where you wanted to go.’ I’m proud.’’