TAMPA — The biggest save of Dan Giese’s professional life occurred in San Diego, although not at PETCO Park.

“I was on patrol at 4 in the morning,” Giese recalled last week at George M. Steinbrenner Field, “and I see this car casing some parking lots. I’m just going to go down the street, drive by and talk to the driver. Once I turned the lights to talk to them, they just bolted, took off. They start screeching through this parking lot.

“They had one of those bars to go up and down [to exit the lot]. So the bar goes up, they’re able to go, and it comes down. I’m sitting there waiting, and the car’s taking off. They’re going really fast down a cul-de-sac.

“By the time the bar comes up and I go, the car had rolled. So I get up to it. There’s no one in the car. I didn’t know it at the time, so I’m at gunpoint, calling out the people in the car, because I didn’t see them ditch the car.

“… It was all hands on deck. They wound up finding them, two people, hiding in a building. They both were arrested with felonies. They had burglary tools and were breaking into cars. They stole a car.”

Giese, 41, now performs relatively stress-free work as the Yankees’ director of pro scouting. Along with his assistant director Matt Daley, he oversees a group of 19 scouts who evaluate external talent for potential acquisition as well as collaborate with advance scouting director Bret Weber on preparing the current big-league team for upcoming opponents. Diehard Yankees fans will recall Giese as a journeyman pitcher who appeared in 20 games, including three starts, for the 2008 club that closed down the (refurbished) original Yankee Stadium.

Between his stints as pitcher and scout, from 2011 until 2014, Giese patrolled the water, the airport and other areas as an officer for the San Diego Harbor Police Department. That middle chapter distinguishes him among the Yankees’ brain trust that stands behind the batting cage at George M. Steinbrenner Field before each Grapefruit League game. And among the many baseball operations folks with high ceilings throughout the industry.

“The bottom line is, I think he is capable of anything in the sport,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “He could be a general manager one day and run his own shop.”

Born and bred in Southern California, Giese pitched for the University of San Diego and was selected by the Red Sox in the 34th round of the 1999 amateur draft. He was, as Cashman put it, “a pitchability right-handed starter.” Someone without overwhelming stuff, in other words.

After bouncing from the Red Sox to the Padres to the Phillies, Giese made his major league debut for the Giants on Sept. 8, 2007, at age 30. His release by the Giants after the season and the Yankees’ subsequent signing of him to a minor league contract paid off in the short term with his most meaningful big-league campaign, as he tallied a 3.53 ERA over 43 ¹/₃ innings in ’08. It also paid off with long-term relationships.

“I always thought Dan was a genuinely curious player,” said Angels GM Billy Eppler, one of Cashman’s top deputies at the time. “He was very curious about himself and what made him successful pitching. He had a growth mindset. He’s one of those guys you always thought down the road, if he had interest in working for a team, he could do it.”

Alas, such opportunities didn’t present themselves in 2010, when Giese, whom the A’s claimed off waivers in 2009, called it quits to due to shoulder and elbow woes. He quickly thought of another path.

“Every year during the offseason, I was pitching with [celebrated pitching coach] Tom House, and one of the guys catching there [Ryan Welch] was a San Diego police officer,” Giese said. “Before I would leave for spring training, he would invite me on a ride-along. I loved it. … One of the last ones I did, we chased a guy down, hopping fences. Awesome. From that point on, after building up that many ride-alongs, I thought, ‘This is something I’d like to do.’ ”

He spent six months training in the San Diego police academy and landed a job with the Harbor Police.

“Dan’s really strong suit was his ability to talk to people,” recalled Sgt. Mike McLean of the San Diego PD, who helped train Giese. “He was always a good communicator. He made the same mistakes that most field trainees make.”

Most notably, Giese can’t forget booking a suspect for arrest, only to miss removing a penny from the man’s pants pocket. “Did he potentially miss a weapon? We take those things very seriously,” McLean said, before adding with a laugh, “In our weekly meeting, I got in Dan’s business.”

Nonetheless, McLean projected a strong future for his officer, and the good far outweighed the bad.

“I absolutely loved it,” Giese said. “It was exactly what I was looking for, post-playing career. It was like joining a team again.”

He thought about joining his department’s dive team.

His love for baseball never left him, however, and he had maintained a relationship with his fellow San Diegan Kevin Reese, who had climbed the Yankees’ organizational ladder upon retiring. Reese occasionally tapped Giese’s brain about certain players and conveyed that information back to Eppler, and that organically opened a scouting opportunity for Giese.

“I think when I just got done playing, if I had an offer to stay in baseball, I would’ve taken that over law enforcement,” Giese said. “But I didn’t have that offer at the time. Once this came about from the Yankees, that’s just who I am. I guess we’re all institutionalized by this game at some point.”

The Yankees hired him as an area scout in January 2014; he was responsible for the entire Padres and Twins organizations, plus five other major league clubs. And in short time, Giese saw that his previous job helped inform his new job.

“I had to write so many police reports,” Giese said. “So [when] I had to write a report on a player, I always felt like I had that defense attorney on my shoulder. Everything I write down is going to be cross-examined at some point. And so I feel like, with that mindset, while I’m writing everything down: ‘This better be right, or you’re going to look like a jackass on the [witness] stand.’ I feel like it really helped me.”

Eppler remembered, “how quick he took to player evaluation, how much work he did on his own to better his evaluations. He basically showed us all this extra work he was doing in his description of a player. It was more of this 360-degree view of evaluation rather than, ‘Whatever I saw.’ He stood out in a room at a very young baseball scouting age.”

In January 2016, Giese moved to New York to become the Yankees’ assistant director of pro scouting. Two years later, he earned a promotion to director. With a voice in every trade and free-agent signing, he has helped the Yankees put together one of the deepest rosters in the game.

“I would pay to do this job if I had to,” said Giese, who demurred when asked about his future aspirations. “I love working for Cash. He’s a high-trust guy. It’s like a family.”

“I love his demeanor,” Cashman said. “He’s very patient. He’ll listen. He’ll give you an informed opinion based on a lot of data and game evaluation. He’s not emotional. Traits that would have served him well if he had stayed on the force. So I think our gain is their loss.”

For Giese, grateful for the unusual path that got him here, the entire chain of events goes down as his biggest professional win.