A former Connecticut Huskie, Oberg is as smart as they come. But just as he’s meshed his own experiences with that of his star-studded ‘pen mates to reach the level he’s at now, he’s had to mesh his sense with an extreme amount of will.

In August of 2016, axillary artery thrombosis (blood clots) in his arm and shoulder ended his season. He underwent two surgeries to correct the problem and was prescribed blood-thinning medication. While that fixed his issue, the sutures applied on his right shoulder got infected.

Again, that’s his right shoulder. Where he makes his money using it to throw nearly 100 mph.

And his potential life-threatening condition doesn’t even scratch the surface.

“Right before I had to go to the hospital, I was telling one of the guys what was going on,” Oberg told the Hartford Courant in 2017, “and he asked, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ … Well, I said there’s not really anything to be scared of, just going through everything I had gone through medically, I’m like ‘all I’ve got to do is get to the hospital and I’ll be okay.'”

As a sophomore in college, his physical condition weakened. Oberg struggled to get to class and eventually had to get around Storrs, Conn., as psoriatic arthritis overcame his feet and legs. The now-28-year-old nearly a decade ago was using a cane to get around campus until the proper medication was found.

That was the toughest for Oberg because of the lack of timetable … but his bout with breakdowns was far from over.