NEW YORK — You could accuse Domingo Germán of cheating, but it appears that charge wouldn’t stick.
Germán wasn’t found guilty of breaking the league’s rule banning foreign substances despite a tense situation that seemed to nearly lead to his ejection in the Yankees’ 6-1 win over the Twins on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
Instead, Germán just didn’t follow directions well enough.
Here’s what happened.
The situation
Germán hadn’t allowed a base runner and had struck out six of the first nine batters he faced as he walked off the mound in the middle of the third inning. First-base umpire James Hoye, the crew chief, stopped the righty to check his hands for foreign substances. He cleared Germán’s glove and his left hand. But there was a problem.
“His pitching hand,” Hoye told a pool reporter, “it was tacky.”
Germán told him it was rosin, a legal substance. Hoye told him to wash his hands between innings to remove the elevated level of tackiness.
But when Germán left the dugout to go to the mound for the top of the fourth, Hoye inspected his hand again.
“There was still some tackiness on his pinkie,” Hoye said.
The umpire reminded Germán that he had told him to wash his hands, and Germán said that he did. Manager Aaron Boone and the team’s Spanish interpreter both backed up Germán.
So, Hoye asked umpire D.J. Reyburn for a second opinion, and the crew huddled. They talked over “whether it’s actual sticky foreign substance that affects the flight of the ball or a tacky that would probably come from a rosin bag,” Hoye said. Ultimately, they decided Germán hadn’t broken the rules.
Germán’s explanation
The 30-year-old said he regularly taps a rosin bag on his way out of the dugout before he heads to the mound, which explained the rosin on his hand.
“He felt like it was too sticky, and the comment that he made, the umpire, was that I had not been using the rosin bag here on the mound much,” the pitcher said. “And when I was coming back, it was the same thing that he had mentioned.”
Boone said rosin can develop different levels of tackiness and didn’t discount that moisture from the air or sweat from Germán could have added to it.
“It’s just a level that caught (Hoye’s) attention,” Boone said.
Germán said he uses rosin all the time and has never had an issue. He did, however, wonder if he was about to get thrown out.
“When I went back out, the discussion, it was intense,” Germán said. “There was a moment there where I felt that maybe things were going to get out of hand, but I was able to explain it and tell them that I have a rosin bag that’s in the area of the dugout where I sit all the time. He was able to talk that over and understand and reason. He was able to listen to what I was saying. He discussed that with the rest of the umpires and they said, ‘OK, fine, go back out there and pitch.’”
Rocco Baldelli’s ejection
After the umpires cleared Germán and as he warmed up on the mound before the start of the fourth, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli went ballistic on Hoye, who threw out Baldelli. In fact, Hoye said Baldelli essentially told him, “You’re going to have to run (eject) me in this situation.”
“Obviously,” Baldelli told reporters, “everyone that was watching the game could see the same thing that we were seeing. Their pitcher was warned or asked to clean his hand off of the rosin that was on his hand because sometimes if you do use rosin, it will get especially tacky. He was warned. He didn’t fully comply with the warning, from what I was told, and was still allowed to keep pitching. That’s it. I just don’t agree with that in principle.”
The aftermath
Germán retired 10 of the next 13 batters he faced following Baldelli’s ejection. He lasted 6 1/3 innings, striking out a career-best 11 while walking none and surrendering a run on three hits.
“I’ve been a pitcher that has been able to throw strikes,” Germán said. “Today, that’s what I was doing. I know you feel different if you’re the opposing manager, but that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I’ve done in my career.”
(Top photo: Wendell Cruz / USA Today)
