Twins roasting a rumored trade deadline target made win over Cleveland even sweeter

While the Minnesota Twins didn't end up trading for Alex Cobb at the deadline, he still helped them beat the Cleveland Guardians.

Cleveland swooped in and made a deal with the San Francisco Giants to acquired Cobb at the deadline, adding to their starting pitching depth while also stealing a potential trade target from their AL Central rivals. It came out after the deadline that Twins weren't engaged in pursuing Cobb, but there was no shortage of rumors linking him to Minnesota.

He made sense for the Twins, even more so after the brutal news that Joe Ryan might be lost until the postseason with a teres strain. Cobb hadn't pitched all season due to a hip injury, which made him a potentially cheap target for a frugal franchise to chase.

Instead, Cleveland came seemingly out of nowhere to trade for Cobb and he made his season debut on Friday in Minnesota. Even though he was wearing the opposing uniform, the trade can be chalked up to a win for the Twins.

Twins roughing up Alex Cobb made the win over Cleveland even better

Cobb's night got off to a bumpy start from the jump, giving up a pair of runs over his first two innings of work. Things settled down a bit until the fifth inning when he was on the wrong end of a pretty questionable managerial decision.

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt left Cobb on the mound to face the Twins lineup for a third time, even though this was just his first game back from injury. On the one hand, Cobb is a former All-Star who Cleveland was trusting to be able to get through the order one more time before going ot the bullpen.

What ended up happening was Matt Wallner taking a pitch 390 feet to right field for a three-run homer.

There's something poetic about the Guardians thumbing their nose at the Twins all season, swooping in at the trade deadline to try and strengthen their division lead, and then having it all blow up in their face.

Cobb deserves his share of the blame for offering up such a juicy pitch for Wallner to tattoo, but the mind-bogglingly decision by Vogt to leave him in the game might be the bigger snafu.

Either way, the Twins ended up on the right side of the Cobb trade -- for now. There's still a lot of baseball left to play, but after a season of being held at arms length by Cleveland, it was deeply statisying to watch the doubleheader sweep on Friday go down the way it did.

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