A timeline of how Yankees and Rangers inched closer to the Joey Gallo trade

When the news hit Twitter, it wasn’t quite news yet.

The Yankees had been quietly working hard to acquire the versatile Joey Gallo from Texas, but as of 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, did not believe they were close to a deal.

As reports circulated that surprised them, the Yankees were taken aback. First, one team source said that there was no deal. Minutes later, another said emphatically that they had not acquired a player.

Surely, that must mean that they had agreed on a trade but not yet made it official.

Nope, the source said. It wasn’t semantic. They were actually still working on it.

As team officials noticed their phones blowing up, they grumbled at the additional complication. Now their fan base thought they were nearing a major trade, when in reality they didn’t know if it would go through at all.

Asked if there was optimism about a Gallo trade eventually happening, one source directly involved in talks answered with a shrug emoji.

Minutes passed. Rumors flew. At one point, Yankees pitching prospect Clarke Schmidt might have read that he was on the move. He was not. Ditto for Rangers reliever John King. Not a Yankee.

Over on the game broadcast, Michael Kay relayed what he was told: The Yankees weren’t at the stage of finalizing a deal for Gallo.

Trying to tune out the noise, the teams continued to work. Gallo, after all, was the position player that the Yankees desired. He is a lefty bat, and while the front office didn’t consider this nearly as urgent as some fans and pundits, there’s no question that lineup balance is a positive.

Gallo gets on base, hits home runs and has played both corner outfield positions, both corner infield positions and even some center field. He is under team control through the 2022 season.

Furthermore, the Yankees are still dead set on wiping a disappointing -- at times horrific -- first half of the season from their memories. The American League East title might be out of reach, but they want to grind for the Wild Card, and never really considered becoming trade deadline sellers.

With all that as the backdrop, along with the still-false perception that a trade was close, the teams continued to work. At 9:30 p.m. they were still exchanging names, and hadn’t come to an agreement, let alone begun a review of medical records.

This wasn’t a holdup. It wasn’t a snag. It was simply a negotiation, and it was moving forward.

The next 60-to-90 minutes brought progress. The names in the deal began to crystallize. Just before 11, one of the same sources who was insisting through the night that a deal was not being finalized updated their indication to “getting close.”

A little after 11 p.m., Jack Curry of the YES Network reported a package of players noticeably different from the ones rumored earlier in the evening. The Yankees would be getting Gallo, and lefty reliever Joely Rodriguez for a quartet of minor leaguers: RHP Glenn Otto, 2B Ezequiel Duran, SS Josh Smith and 2B/OF Trevor Hauver.

Wednesday turned to Thursday, when Gallo officially became a Yankee.

And the Yankees, who defeated Tampa Bay in 10 innings while their front office was working on acquiring Gallo, were able to still feel alive in the race, despite all the struggle they have endured since April.