This story was excerpted from Matthew Leach's Twins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CLEVELAND -- When “we ran into Draymond Green” is an afterthought, you know you’ve had a memorable few days.
Twins rookie Pierson Ohl has been all over the Upper Midwest in the past week. His journey has included a pair of 4:45 a.m. alarms, a few hours in Toledo, a flight on a private jet, not one but two callups to the Major Leagues and, yes, bumping into a certain four-time NBA champion at the Nike store.
OK, so let’s start at the beginning.
As of last weekend, Ohl had a pretty normal life at Triple-A St. Paul. Recently promoted from Double-A Wichita and pitching on the Twins’ innovative hybrid plan, an imminent callup wasn’t really on his radar. The trade of Chris Paddack to the Tigers last Monday changed that, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
On Monday, Ohl got up before 5 a.m., went to MSP airport for the Saints’ trip to Toledo and … sat waiting for a delayed flight to depart. When he finally got to Detroit, there was a “miscommunication” with the team bus, leaving players to get to Toledo on their own -- but Ohl’s driver somehow took him downtown instead of to the team hotel in Toledo.
So with no game until Tuesday, Ohl and fellow pitchers Jarret Whorff and Cody Laweryson decided to have an adventure. Hey, you’re only in Detroit every so often, right?
“We’re like, ‘Screw it.’ We had the whole off-day on Monday,” Ohl said. “We spend all day in Detroit. We ran into Draymond Green at a Nike store. Kind of had a full experience. … We get lunch in downtown Detroit, and we’re like, ‘OK, let’s check out Comerica. We have the off-day.’ We watch the Diamondbacks take BP through the gate. We decide, ‘All right, it’s time to Uber back down to Toledo. We have to get ready.’”
Remember, at this point, Ohl still doesn’t know he’s 24 hours from his big league debut. But wait … you watched through the gates?
“Outside the stadium,” Ohl said. “Just watching BP. Crazy. We finally get down to Toledo. I’m there in my hotel room for about 30 minutes, and my phone rings. They’re like, ‘Hey, you’re going to The Show, you have to get back in an Uber and drive to Detroit, because you’re staying there. Because there are no flights tonight, you’re flying out at 7 a.m.’ Two days before my debut, I had back-to-back 4:45 a.m. alarms. It just makes that story so much sweeter.”
But that’s just part one. Ohl made his start on Tuesday, and technically he was optioned back to Triple-A afterward. Technically. The Twins at that point knew that they were likely to make multiple trades at the Deadline on Thursday, which would present both the opportunity and the need to recall Ohl. So while he was officially back on St. Paul’s roster, he didn’t have to go back to Toledo again.
Instead, he got to spend a nice morning with his family before they left town, then follow the Deadline news as it broke all afternoon. Once it was all done, though, Ohl had to travel again to meet the Twins in Cleveland.
This time the accommodations were a little more luxurious. Byron Buxton, who had stayed back to spend Thursday’s off-day with his family, invited Ohl to fly private to Cleveland with him that evening. And so on Friday, Ohl was back in a big league clubhouse, presumably for a longer stint this time around.
“I was like, 'Hey, I was here a day ago,'” he quipped. “It was fun, it was crazy. It was like, 'Oh, we're the new guys,' but we've all known each other over the last couple of weeks. There was some comfortability there. It's been 48 hours, but I'm enjoying the guys. It's fun.”