Historic MLB matchup: former Nebraska Cornhuskers face off for first time

The Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team has had a very interesting spring. They won their first Big Ten Tournament Title in program history, and there summarily trounced out of the NCAA Regionals. Though the team that did the deed to get them out, is also headed to the College World Series.

Today, two former Nebraska baseball players are going to do battle. Both are rookies. Both are in the major leagues. And Husker fans are going to have someone to celebrate no matter who gets the “W.”

Ex-Nebraska Cornhuskers stars meet in historic MLB matchup

For the Baltimore Orioles, Cade Povich takes the mound for his second major league start. He’ll be hoping that his performance will be quite a bit better than his first start. He’s currently 0-1 with a 10.13 earned run average. But he’ll be looking to represent the Nebraska Cornhuskers better.

What made that bad 5.1-inning outing against the Toronto Bluejays worse is that he recorded just two strikeouts. His claim to fame in AAA had been that he was getting quite a bit more strikeouts than innings pitched.

Povich take on the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night and matchup against Spencer Scwellenbach, who has also had a bit of a rocky road in the majors so far.

Schwellenbach has two starts under his belt, has managed to total just 9.2 innings and posted an 8.38 era over those two starts. One has to think that he especially is going to need a great outing on Wednesday in order to stay in The Show.

Of course, the two former Nebraska baseball stars individually are noteworthy but it’s the history of the matchup that really takes the cake. When Povich and Schwellenbach meet it will be the first time that any of the NU hurlers that have a combined 563 MLB starts spanning nearly a full century, but two former Nebraska Cornhuskers have never met. Now they will.