In the hallway outside the Braves clubhouse at Truist Park Tuesday night, a gaggle of Spencer Schwellenbach’s biggest supporters reveled in the moment. It included his parents Jay and Robin, his fiancée Shelby Vondette and her parents, altogether a group of about 10.
They shared an air of excitement and a series of hugs and photos with the Braves rookie pitcher, who had just earned his first major-league win by plowing through the Detroit Tigers for six innings in a 2-1 Braves win.
Schwellenbach’s parents have now been present for three of their son’s four major-league starts, driving from Michigan to Atlanta for his May 29 debut, to Baltimore for his third start June 12 and Atlanta again for his fourth. They plan another there-and-back trip to St. Louis next week for the next start.
“Because you never know when it’s going to end,” Jay told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The elder Schwellenbach’s uncertainty is understandable. But it sure looks like his son has the goods to stick around for awhile.
“For me, he’s been impressive every time out,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
A second-round pick of the Braves in 2021 out of Nebraska, Schwellenbach figures to be Snitker’s fifth starter as long as he keeps pitching as he has, particularly in his past two starts. His line Tuesday: six innings, one earned run and a career-high seven strikeouts against three hits and two walks.
Against Baltimore, he went six innings with two earned runs and three strikeouts against four hits and two walks. His ERA for the past two games is 2.25. He has allowed two home runs in 21 2/3 innings.
“Just growing every time I pitch, learning what to throw, when to throw it, how to throw it,” Schwellenbach said. “And that’s kind of helped me set up hitters and set up weak contact and miss bats.”
His rise has been meteoric. Schwellenbach began this season – his second in professional baseball – at High-A Rome. He was promoted to Double-A Mississippi May 14 and jumped to the big club just two weeks later.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
And that’s arguably the less remarkable part of his ascent. He was recruited to Nebraska as a two-way player but was strictly an infielder (mostly shortstop) in his first two seasons, the latter of which was the COVID-shortened 2020 season. After the season was canceled, Schwellenbach returned home to Saginaw, Michigan. With time on his hands, he experimented throwing a variety of pitches into a hockey net in his backyard. He didn’t have a radar gun, but he knew he was throwing hard.
“And I said, ‘Yeah, I want to do that next year,’” Schwellenbach told The AJC in May when he was still with the Mississippi Braves. “That’s how that all came along.”
Prior to the Cornhuskers’ 2021 season, Schwellenbach earned the closer job after throwing about 20 bullpen pitches in an audition. He went on to post a 0.57 ERA as a closer while hitting .284. He earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors and was drafted by the Braves.
And then he had to undergo Tommy John surgery, which kept him out for the entire 2021 season. The time away from baseball proved a productive respite.
“I had a long time to sit there and kind of be O.K. with not playing, but also (feel) that urge to get back to playing,” Schwellenbach said. “And now that I am playing, kind of taking every day as it is and not getting too far ahead of myself, and it helps me with every pitch, one pitch at a time.”
Schwellenbach has many pitches to toss one at a time. Against the Tigers, he threw a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a slider, a cutter, a curveball, a splitter and a sinker for a total of seven. A year ago at this time, he said, he had three pitches and was working on a fourth.
Against the Tigers, he relied on his cutter “and I’ve never done that before,” he said. “Five weeks ago, six weeks ago, I might have thrown that pitch five times and (Tuesday), it might have been my most thrown pitch. Kind of whatever’s working and lean on that.”
Braves fans are seeing a rookie who pitched one year in college and then one-plus seasons in the minor leagues learn how to pitch before their eyes (at least the fans who aren’t Comcast subscribers).
Perhaps the next step of the challenge for the many-lettered righty will be responding to opponents after they get a better handle on his wealth of pitches. But he can lean on his growing experience, veteran catchers in Travis d’Arnaud and Sean Murphy and a slew of savvy pitchers including Chris Sale and Charlie Morton who have taken him under their wing.
For instance, Schwellenbach said, he would previously have never considered throwing three consecutive cutters, but Tuesday he said he let the game dictate the pattern. After getting swings and misses on two consecutive cutters, “why not throw another one?” he said. “I would never have done that, but Travis went through pregame with me kind of what we were going to do, and if we got to a situation like that, kind of lean on that pitch and that’s kind of what we did.”
He showed his poise in the two most troublesome situations he encountered in his six innings – the top of the fourth, when he had two runners on with two out, and the top of the sixth, when he gave up his lone run with a triple and a one-out single.
In the fourth, he got up 0-2 on Justyn-Henry Malloy and ended the threat with at flyout to left. In the sixth, he got a force play from Colt Keith and then struck out Malloy (a former Georgia Tech star) to finish his night, ripping a 94-mile-per-hour fastball for a called third strike on his 89th pitch of the night.
After that, he watched from the clubhouse as Pierce Johnson, Joe Jimenez and Raisel Iglesias finished out the game to secure career win No. 1.
“It was awesome,” Schwellenbach said.
It’s a good thing Jay and Robin Schwellenbach are both retired. It looks like they’ve got a lot more trips down to Atlanta in their future.
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