The LoHud Yankees Blog

New addition to the wall of the Yankees clubhouse this morning: The full list of schedules pitchers for Wednesday’s spring opener.

We already knew Chad Gaudin, Sergio Mitre and Alfredo Aceves would be pitching the opener. Available out of the bullpen will be Jonathan Albaladejo, Wilkins Arias, Jason Hirsh, Royce Ring, Amaury Sanit and Zach Segovia.

For the first time since the World Series, Mariano Rivera threw off a mound yesterday. While most every other pitcher in camp follows the same, carefully crafted spring schedule, Rivera does his own thing. The years have taught him that he requires only a handful of spring innings to be ready for the season.

A.J. Burnett also threw off a mound yesterday, facing hitters and working to refine his changeup. The notebook also has items on Chan Ho Park, Damaso Marte, Andy Pettitte, Andrew Brackman and today’s mystery team outing.

Off the field, Alex Rodriguez will be interviewed as part of a federal investigation into a Canadian doctor connected to performance enhancing drugs.

Not sure when we’ll find out what the Yankees are doing today, but we probably have an hour or two until the announcement. Feel free to use this post to lock in your guess. I’m going with miniature golf.

Now that I’ve had my coffee, let me change that prediction by realizing the obvious: It poured in Tampa last night. There’s a tarp on the field at Steinbrenner Field and the idea of mini-golf seems absurd. I’ll let you know when we get the official word.

The Yankees traded for left-handed reliever Boone Logan this winter, but they also quietly signed 29-year-old lefty Royce Ring to a minor league contract. A first-round draft pick in 2002, Ring has pitched in 94 major league games, holding lefties to a .229  batting average. He uses a side-arm delivery and had a 3.04 ERA with Triple-A Memphis last season.

When did you develop the low arm angle?
Ring: I had a velocity drop in 2004 and came into spring training with the Mets in 2005… I threw really well, but (pitching coach Rick Peterson) just came over and said, I think you should drop down. You’d be more effective. I was still with them, had another three or four years before I could get out of there, so I figured I might as well try it while I’m here. It wasn’t a real unnatural thing for me to do. I messed around with it growing up, played positions growing up, so it’s not like I was just an over-the-top guy my whole life.

Did you change what you threw when you dropped down?
Ring: Not too much. Still kept the same kind of pitches, and actually dropping down, the velocity was just as good as it was. Not (as good as) coming out of college, but I was still throwing the ball well, it was just a matter of throwing strikes. That was the hardest thing my first year. Two weeks of learning how to do it in the spring, then three weeks in Triple-A and I was called up. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Just aim down the middle and throw as hard as I could. There was a learning experience, and I feel like from there I’ve gotten more controlled and my mechanics have become more sound and being able to reproduce it every time.”

What caused the drop in velocity?
Ring: I think, just going from college to the pros, you don’t understand that you’re going to be throwing every day… In college I threw twice a week. If I didn’t feel good, I didn’t pick up a baseball. When I got to professional baseball, my velocity dropped a couple of miles per hour. The year I lost my velocity, I think I created some bad habits in my mechanics. I kind of got pushed through spring training. Nobody really worked with me too much. I kind of fell into bad habits and just couldn’t find it. Then I got into the season and I couldn’t be in the bullpen every day working on my mechanics or I’d be tired for the game. It turned into a tough year for me, but I still threw pretty well considering.

What do you throw?
Ring: Fastball. Curveball. Slider. Change. And then I’m actually working on a knuckleball right now. It’s good some days, and bad some days. It’s something I’m working on. The changeup is really hard for me to throw sidearm, so it’s good some days. It’s an on and off pitch for me.
Would you use it like a changeup?
Ring: Exactly. It’s not like I’m going to go out there and throw 40 knuckleballs. It’s just a pitch for me to change speeds and keep down in the zone and keep hitters off balance.

Did you see a good opportunity with the Yankees after they traded Phil Coke and Mike Dunn?
Ring: Two real good lefties, young guys who could throw. Coke proved himself pretty well, and when he was gone, it just seemed like this was a place where I could come and show what I have and hopefully be a part of one of the best teams in baseball, or maybe the best. I’m not expecting to be handed a job or anything like that, it’s just an opportunity to go out and throw and show them what I can do. If they like it, they like it. If they don’t, they don’t. All you can control is what you do out there.

When today’s workout finished, the crew at George M. Steinbrenner Field went to work painting World Series Champions logos in foul territory along the first-base and third-base lines. The logos will be in place for the spring opener on Wednesday.

Speaking of the opener, the Yankees will face two of their former teammates when the Pirates come to town.

Ross Ohlendorf and Steven Jackson are each scheduled to pitch on Wednesday. Paul Maholm will get the start for the Pirates, with Ohlendorf pitching after him. Both are scheduled for only one inning. Another former Yankees right-hander, Dan McCutchen, will make his first spring appearance on Friday.

Apparently attempting to even out all of the former Yankees now pitching for the Pirates, it seems the Yankees have signed former Pirates first-round pick John Van Benschoten to a minor league deal. Van Benschoten was the eighth overall pick in 2001, but he was also one of several early Pirates draft picks who never worked out at the big league level.

For Mariano Rivera, today’s bullpen session was the beginning of a methodical and finely tuned process. It was the first time he’d thrown off a mound since the World Series.

“I felt good,” Rivera said. “I wasn’t wild. For the first one, I’ll take it.”

On the day Rivera threw his first bullpen, most of the minor league pitchers threw for the fifth time this spring. Learning how to get ready for the season — and get ready to pitch into October — seems to be a skill of it’s own.

“I was running the other day,” Triple-A reliever Grant Duff said. “I’m a bigger guy so I’m not the fastest runner in the world, but I looked over — and I’m running pretty much as hard as I can on this last one — and he’s right there with me the whole time. I was like, oh my gosh. He knows exactly what he has to do to be prepared for what he’s going to do, which is cool. That’s what we all strive to do is to get to that routine that you know exactly what it takes to be at your best and last the whole season. He’s got it down to a science.”

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• Andy Pettitte is the only pitcher throwing batting practice tomorrow, but a few others will throw a normal bullpen session. Pettitte is supposed to pitch around 9 a.m. and the team should be out of camp close to 10.

• Still no word on what the big group outing will be, but Girardi said it will be competitive. “It’ll be fun,” he said. “I’ve got some work I need tonight to prepare for it, but it’ll be fun.”

• Chan Ho Park threw 35 pitches today. Damaso Marte threw 25. They’ll throw another bullpen on Wednesday.

• While A.J. Burnett was facing hitters on the main field, Andrew Brackman threw batting practice on a back field. “He was pretty good for a first BP,” pitching coordinator Nardi Contreras said. “He was better than some of the big league pitchers I saw on their first day.”

• When Burnett was finished with his BP, he walked off the field and said “Thank you guys,” to the hitters. I thought that was cool.

• I saw Jorge Vazquez hit a few bombs today. Nothing off the top of the scoreboard, but he can hit them pretty far.

• Tony Pena hit fairly routine ground balls to Derek Jeter at shortstop, then he mixed in a ball deep in the hole toward third base. When Jeter got to it Pena said, “Just checking, that’s all.”

A.J. Burnett threw 30 pitches of live batting practice today. None of those pitches were curveballs, but he guessed that 12 of them were changeups. Burnett also guessed what the scouting report on his changeup might be for other teams.

“Has one. Never threw it. But he might,” he said.

Burnett spent the winter trying to improved a changeup that he has thrown “very occasionally” in his career. He threw nothing but fastballs and changeups today, and said he will probably throw nothing but fastballs and changeups through his first two or three starts of the spring.

“Watching CC throw last year, being a power guy and how much he uses it, just kind of opened my eyes a little bit,” Burnett said. “Why not work on something.”

Joe Girardi was sitting behind the batting cage while Burnett faced hitters, and said he liked what he saw in his No. 2 starter’s No. 3 pitch.

“I had some depth to it and some run to it,” Girardi said. “He threw some good ones.”

Here’s the Burnett audio. It’s worth listening for the last line: “I’m talking like a pitcher,” Burnett said. “What’s going on here?”

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Alex Rodriguez acknowledged this afternoon that he is participating in federal investigation into Dr. Tony Galea.

“I’m aware of an investigation and I plan on cooperating,” he said.

Rodriguez would not say whether he’s been in contact with Dr. Galea and said he’s not sure when he will meet with investigators.

“I can’t really get into that,” Rodriguez said. “I know that you guys have to ask those questions, but I have to speak to those guys first and then you guys will know, pretty much all at the same time.”

This time, Rodriguez is not at the center of the story. He seems linked to Dr. Galea through Dr. Mark Lindsay, who managed Rodriguez’s hip rehab. Mets shortstop Jose Reyes has already been interviewed as part of the investigation.

“This is about someone else,” Rodriguez said. “I’m going to cooperate as best I can and focus on baseball.”

UPDATE, 2:55 p.m.: Statement from the Yankees.

“The New York Yankees have not been contacted with regard to an investigation of Dr. Tony Galea. The Yankees never authorized Dr. Tony Galea to treat Alex Rodriguez, nor do we have any knowledge of any such treatment. The Yankees authorized Dr. Marc Philippon to operate on Alex and oversee his rehabilitation. At the request of Dr. Philippon, we also authorized Dr. Mark Lindsay to supervise the daily rehabilitation program established by Dr. Philippon. We will continue to monitor the situation.”

Mariano Rivera’s first bullpen session is over. He threw 21 pitches to Francisco Cervelli, with Cervelli pointing and nodding every time Rivera hit his spot.

Rivera was throwing with minimal effort, just taking it nice and easy, throwing to the target. For the most part Rivera seemed to be simply throwing strikes, but Cervelli had him occasionally working specifically to the inner half and seemed happy with those results.

A lot of pointing and nodding on those pitches.

When the clubhouse opened this morning, I asked one of the minor league pitchers why the group started long toss so early today. “I have no idea,” was the response. The Yankees have a full, regular workout planned. The pitchers just tossed a little earlier than usual. No big deal, just unusual.

Some of the buzz in the clubhouse centered on today’s Daily News story linking Alex Rodriguez to a shady doctor in Canada, but that buzz seemed be only among the writers. The players seemed completely unaware of the story, even asking why we were standing around Rodriguez’s locker (hoping for a comment we didn’t get).

Otherwise, pretty standard stuff today. The sky is blue, the sun is shining and the Yankees will go through their final team workout before the games begin on Wednesday.

• With Chan Ho Park wearing No. 61, Greg Golson has switched to No. 27. Nick Johnson’s number has also changed to 26. Ryan Pope’s number was listed incorrectly on the original roster. He’s actually wearing No. 96, not 69.

• Mariano Rivera, Damaso Marte, Chan Ho Park and Dave Robertson will throw a bullpen session at 11:30. Chad Gaudin, Sergio Mitre, Alfredo Aceves and Jonathan Albaladejo will throw at 11:40. That might indicate that Robertson and Albaladejo are lined up to pitch Wednesday after the Gaudin-Mitre-Aceves trio.

• It seems that some minor league pitchers are also scheduled to throw in the bullpen — Grant Duff definitely said he’s throwing today — but I couldn’t find a list posted in the clubhouse. The only pitchers listed for the bullpen were the eight listed above.

• A.J. Burnett and Andrew Brackman are the only pitchers scheduled to throw live batting practice.

• Defensive assignments: Granderson CF, Gardner CF, Hoffmann LF, Laird 3B, Winfree RF, Nunez SS, Thames LF, Winn CF, Russo 2B, Golson LF, Weber RF, Corona SS, Gorecki CF, Pena 2B, Curtis RF

• Nick Swisher’s morning playlist ranged from KRS-One to Journey. Right now, the stadium PA is playing I Did It, arguably the low point of the Dave Matthews Band’s career.

Not sure why exactly, but the Yankees pitchers are already doing long toss in right field. The team isn’t scheduled to be dressed until 10:10, which means little reason to expect them on the field before 10:30.

Getting started more than an hour and a half early might indicate a short day here in Tampa.