As soon as Dan Giese let the throw go toward second, he wanted it back.
“You know those balls with the strings you can yank back?” Giese said after his first major league start. “This one didn’t have a string.”
Nope, stitches and Major League Baseball imprints. But no strings.
That seventh-inning throw proved to be Giese’s undoing in his battle of contrasting styles with Reds’ rookie Daryl Thompson today at Yankee Stadium. As good as Giese was, his errant throw was the impetus to a four-run seventh, and the Reds, turning the Yankees’ offense to mush for a second straight game, forged a 6-0 victory. After a seven-game winning streak, the Yanks have lost two in a row and have scored four runs in three games.
“We need to score him some runs,” Johnny Damon said about Giese after the Yanks managed seven hits – six singles – and wasted huge early opportunities. “He’s showed us a lot.”
Giese, the Yanks’ 31-year-old rookie with an aggravatingly effective hesitation in his from-the-stretch delivery, kept the Reds off balance by changing speeds and basically floating beach balls for nearly seven innings as he stepped in for Chien-Ming Wang. Thompson, the Reds’ 22-year-old righty making his major league debut, hurled pellets for five shutout innings and dodged several on-coming trains early. Both were equally frustrating.
The biggest frustration, though – beyond the Yanks’ offense spinning in mud again – was Giese trying to start a seventh-inning double play.
“The only real mistake he made was on the double play,” Joe Girardi said of Giese, who did not reach a three-ball count to any batter.
Ken Griffey Jr. singled to start the seventh, only the third hit off Giese. It seemed no matter when Brandon Phillips banged a comebacker to Giese. But the pitcher’s throw to second was way wide right, pulling Robinson Cano off the bag. Fielder’s choice, E-1.
“It was just a bad throw. Simple as that,” said Giese, who admitted he rushed his throw. “You get excited. ‘Wow, a sweet double play.’ It was definitely a momentum shift right there.”
Joey Votto then bounced another potential double-play grounder, this one to Alex Rodriguez at third. Rodriguez tried to tag Junior, couldn’t, and settled for the out at first. Giese then fanned Adam Dunn and was a strike away from an escape, but Edwin Encarnacion singled to left to score two.
“We were supposed to go up and in and I missed,” said Giese, who exited to a huge ovation.
Jose Veras entered and promptly surrendered Corey Patterson’s sixth homer of the year, a shot off the facing of the upper deck in right. Cincy added two runs against relievers Billy Traber and Ross Ohlendorf in the eighth on Phillips’ shot past a drawn-in Rodriguez.
The Yanks had chances despite only one extra-base hit. Putting the leadoff man aboard in the first four innings ultimately produced squat, and they left 12 men on base.
“We had chances early, got guys on base and didn’t really capitalize,” Jorge Posada said.