Former Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball star Spencer Schwellenbach had himself quite the impressive rookie season in 2024 with the Atlanta Braves. Now he’s looking forward to starting the 2025 campaign with the big league club.
Just over a month until the next season and Schwellenbach is ready to go. And to show that, he sat down and talked to Pitching Ninja about his rookie campaign, what it was like to get called up and then have the success he had; and what it was like to strike out the best players in Major League Baseball.
The ex-Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball star started by talking about what it was like to face Bryce Harper almost immediately after he was called up by the Atlanta Braves. "That's a huge deal. You're facing guys that are some of the best of our generation," the pitcher said. "I grew up loving Bryce Harper. Here I am, facing him in front of 40,000 fans. It's like, 'How do you calm yourself down?"
Spencer Schwellenbach discusses pitching to:
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) January 9, 2025
-Bryce Harper
-Shohei Ohtani pic.twitter.com/O5WxNevSPG
Former Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball star talks striking out the biggies
"I struck Harper out with a curveball, and I got Ohtani out with a splitter," Schwellenbach added.
"Against Ohtani, I think two or three pitches before I struck him out, I threw the exact same pitch in the exact same location, and he didn't even take his bat off the shoulder," Schwellenbach said. "I was like, 'Man, I could've sworn that was a really good pitch.' Just even get him to think about it. That's just part of pitching. You've got to throw a couple more pitches, and then that pitch will be open. That's what happened."
In his first season in the bigs, Spencer Schwellenbach impressed plenty. The The 23-year old former Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball star pitched 123.2 innings with a 3.35 ERA and 127 strikeouts - including the Ohtani and Harper strike outs. He finished especially strong, allowing just 3 earned runs in his final 20 innings while striking out 14.