MLB

A-Rod’s defense team makes its case

Alex Rodriguez’s appeal against Major League Baseball resumed after a 30-day hiatus on Monday with an action-packed day in two venues. We didn’t need even the Hispanics Across America protesters to keep us entertained.

Let’s break it down:

1. In the 29th-floor conference room at MLB’s Park Avenue headquarters where Rodriguez is trying to overturn his 211-game suspension, his legal team opened its defense by introducing both a doctor and an IT expert who attempted to contradict the testimony of MLB star witness Anthony Bosch.

While most of Team A-Rod’s public attacks have centered on the alleged indiscretions of MLB investigators, these witnesses got to the meat of the matter at hand — MLB’s charges Rodriguez used multiple illegal performance-enhancing drugs on multiple occasions and obstructed MLB’s investigation of Biogenesis, the shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinics that was owned by Bosch.

The doctor, whose name is not known to us, asserted Rodriguez couldn’t possibly have followed the protocol to which Bosch testified and then passed all of MLB’s drug tests. The IT expert, also unidentified to us, contended Bosch altered text messages and emails to portray a relationship with Rodriguez that didn’t actually exist.

2. Don’t bet on Rodriguez testifying on his behalf. He doesn’t want to risk incurring more discipline — and legal fees — from what he might say in an investigatory interview, and MLB has no incentive to bend on that, even though the Players Association would back Rodriguez.

You remember Rodriguez called in sick to his scheduled interview on Friday. He looked all right when he showed up Monday, but he was said to still feel ill at day’s end and departed the premises by taking a freight elevator to a side exit.

3. Team A-Rod raised the issue of calling up two bold-faced names: Yankees president Randy Levine and baseball commissioner Bud Selig.

Levine is a go. He could testify as soon as Tuesday.

Independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz hasn’t yet ruled on whether Selig must testify. MLB has contended testimony of MLB COO Rob Manfred should suffice in terms of explaining and defending MLB’s suspension of Rodriguez. But it is possible Selig could be ordered to testify under a limited scope.

MLB’s top investigator Dan Mullin is scheduled to lead off the proceedings Tuesday. He will be grilled on his methodology. Team A-Rod lodged the public accusation Mullin engaged in sexual relations with a female employee of Biogenesis.

4. In federal court downtown, MLB attorneys filed paperwork insisting Rodriguez’s former public relations guru, Michael Sitrick, should testify — and repeating allegations someone connected to Rodriguez leaked documents showing former National League MVP Ryan Braun and Rodriguez’s Yankees teammate Francisco Cervelli were Biogenesis clients.

MLB continues to assert Sitrick, at Rodriguez’s urging, authorized an employee to leak the details about Braun and Cervelli toYahoo! Sports. The paperwork accuses Team A-Rod and Sitrick of excessive chicanery to avoid honoring the subpoena MLB attempted to serve Sitrick back in September.

Judge Edgardo Ramos will hear the case on Tuesday; thanks to The Post’s Rich Calder for the heads-up. This argument is critical to MLB’s obstruction charge against Rodriguez. The mere proof A-Rod possessed Biogenesis documents would greatly strengthen the case.

5. For the first time since Day 1 of this case, Sept. 30, the hearing’s participants couldn’t hear any noise from down below. That’s because HAA didn’t show and will appear only occasionally the rest of the way.

“We’re taking a breather,” HAA president Fernando Mateo said in a telephone interview. “HAA is 100 percent behind A-Rod. We will be there sporadically, but won’t be there continually.”

On Thursday, Mateo said, HAA will hold a prayer vigil for Rodriguez in front of the building, featuring “ministers from five boroughs.” We can’t miss that one.

Furthermore, Mateo said, Rodriguez will work with HAA — which the third baseman has denied funding — on other causes in the area.

“He’ll be heavily involved in things that he didn’t do in the past, due to the fact that he was catering to his career,” Mateo said.

Regarding one such cause, the search for missing autistic teenager Avonte Oquendo — The Post attended a meeting between Rodriguez and Oquendo’s family on Nov. 10 — Mateo said he has pulled back at the urging of the New York City Police Department.