It was two seasons ago when Josh Donaldson started sounding the alarm on sticky substances, pitt

ing his current team, the Twins at the time, and his future team, the New York Yankees, in the middle of the drama.

Donaldson, then the Twins’ third baseman, was one of the most vocal players speaking on the issue, calling out pitchers, including Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, for using substances to doctor baseballs to increase their spin rate, which subsequently bettered their performance.

Major League Baseball, in response, established new guidelines to crack down on foreign substances, introducing random checks and penalties that included an immediate ejection and suspension.

It was during one of those checks on Saturday that an issue arose between the two teams again. Yankees starter Domingo Germán had a substance on his hand — determined by the umpires to be rosin, which is legal — and was asked to clean it off. Upon another check, it was not cleaned fully with some residual tackiness left on his pinky.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli took exception to Germán not fully complying with what he had been told to do and did not stick around to watch the rest of the Twins’ 6-1 loss to the Yankees from the dugout, getting tossed from the game after an animated argument with crew chief James Hoye.

“When he comes back out, doesn’t comply with what he was asked to do, has something on his hand he shouldn’t. And then there’s an entire huddle of Yankees basically all around the umpires while they’re trying to have a discussion on the field (and) then he casually can walk to the mound and just keep pitching? It kind of goes against a lot of the things we’ve talked about this year and some of the adjustments we’re making in baseball,” Baldelli said. “I was upset at it.”

Germán who at that point had been perfect, was stopped for a check after completing the top of the third inning. At that point, Hoye noticed his hand was tacky and directed him to clean it.

When he came back out to pitch the fourth inning, a large huddle that included all four umpires, Germán, Yankees manager Aaron Boone and others formed feet away from the Yankees’ dugout. Hoye checked Germán again and noticed some tackiness remaining but less, overall, on his hand. Second-base umpire D.J. Reyburn performed an inspection as well, and they determined that Germán had cleaned his hand.

The umpiring crew, which has been trained to detect the difference between rosin and a foreign substance like Spider Tack, got together and allowed Germán to remain in the game, which upset the Twins (10-5).

“In that situation, it was like, ‘This is not an ejectable offense,’ because we didn’t feel it rose to the foreign substance standard of affecting the flight, affecting his pitching,” Hoye said. “That’s why we didn’t eject him.”

As Germán strolled to the mound to start warming up, Baldelli came out to talk to Hoye, anticipating that the meeting would lead to him being tossed. Inside the Twins’ dugout, the decision to let Germán go back out was met with surprise and frustration.

“If you’re going to do all that, to go through all that, and leave him in the game, why check the hands?” Twins designated hitter Byron Buxton wondered. “Just leave him alone. Why check the hat? Why? Clear as day, as you can tell. But it’s like they were scared. For me, just don’t check him (then). Go play baseball.”

And after that, they did.

Germán pitched 5 1/3 perfect innings before Christian Vázquez’s single broke up his bid for perfection. He wound up pitching into the seventh inning, giving up just one run, which came on back-to-back doubles from Trevor Larnach and Jose Miranda.

“I think our report didn’t have him with as much carry, and it was carrying,” Larnach said. “My first at-bat, definitely, it was kind of, ‘Wow, it’s moving a lot, up.’ People are saying stuff on the slider and everything, but I don’t know. It’s just frustrating.”

The loss snapped the Twins’ four-game winning streak.

Another streak that was snapped?

Each Twins starter had pitched at least five innings through the team’s first 14 games. That ended Saturday, when Tyler Mahle lasted just 4 1/3 innings, surrendering four runs.

Just two were earned — an error on Mahle opened the door for Kyle Higashioka to hit a two-run homer in the second inning, a hole that the Twins never pulled themselves out of as they fell to Germán and the Yankees on a maddening day for the visitors in the Bronx.

“I think everyone’s reaction was on par with how Rocco reacted. It’s pretty frustrating,” Larnach said. “There’s a rule book. I don’t know the rule word for word, but the rules are expected to be followed. It’s pretty common sense for everybody.”