Casey Fien pitched well in his first outing since returning to the Tigers on Tuesday. Fien was called up to replace Joel Zumaya on Detroit's active roster, and pitched two scoreless innings Wednesday in relief of Andy Oliver.
It hasn't been an easy road back to the majors for Fien, who was released by the Tigers in Spring Training. He was quickly signed by the Red Sox, but was released just three days later. The Blue Jays then picked him up, but decided two weeks later that he wasn't in their plans, either. That gave the Tigers, who never wanted to lose Fien in the first place, a chance to re-sign him.
After posting a 2.26 ERA in 39.1 innings (with 27 strikeouts versus six walks) in Triple-A Toledo, thanks largely to a cut fastball, Fien finally has another chance to prove himself again in the majors. But that road back to a big league ballpark continued to be difficult on Tuesday in Minneapolis. Literally so, as his cab driver had no idea how to get to Target Field.
"Everything was fine until I got here (to Minneapolis)," said Fien, who was brought up to replace the injured Joel Zumaya. "I got into a cab at the airport and the driver didn't know who the Twins were or where the stadium was."
[snip]
"He was saying, 'I have a player in there and he needs to get to the stadium,'" Fien said. "I was like, 'Man, please don't.' Then, they had that Justin Bieber concert going on at the Target Center and he tried to drop me off where Bieber's limos were. I said, 'No, man, not there.'"
Target Field, Target Center. Same thing, right? Not so much, Mr. Cab Driver. And "Bieber" sounds nothing like "baseball." But really, the cabbie wasn't that far off. The two places are pretty close to each other.
According to Fien, it took over an hour for him to get to the ballpark. He finally got to the Tigers' clubhouse less than an hour before the start of Tuesday's game. After the year he's had thus far, however, what's one more hour before getting back to the majors?