Joe Ryan Believed False Deadline Reports About Red Sox Trade

For a few moments, Boston Red Sox fans thought the team had made a monumental deadline move by acquiring Joe Ryan from the Minnesota Twins.

So did Ryan.

A social media debacle unfolded late into Thursday night’s trade deadline when FOX and Yahoo Sports misconstrued reporting from MLB insider Jon Morosi to falsely post that the Red Sox landed Ryan. That wasn’t the case, and the starting pitcher was one of the few players Minnesota kept through a fire sale.

Fans weren’t the only ones deceived by those inaccurate tweets. Per MLB.com’s Matthew Leach, Ryan momentarily thought he was going to the Red Sox.

“I obviously thought I got traded for several minutes,” Ryan said, “and then it was like, ‘Is this going to happen? What’s the deal?’ That was a weird mix of emotions.”

Ryan was with relief pitcher Griffin Jax, whom the Twins traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in a deal reported after the 6 p.m. ET deadline.

“It was just weird,” Ryan recalled. “Then he didn’t think he was going to get traded, and he got traded [while] I didn’t. It was weird. It was a lot.”

Ryan took the mound for Minnesota the next day, once again showing why Boston and other teams pursued him by allowing two runs over six innings against the Cleveland Guardians. The All-Star was understandably in a strange headspace following the deadline drama.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Ryan said. “I felt like I threw a whole game yesterday with a lot of emotions. I was kind of in a weird state of mind and physically pretty exhausted too.”

Despite Morosi’s report that Boston was making a late push to land Ryan, other reporting has since indicated that a trade never got close to the finish line.