Alex Rodriguez hip surgery set for next week

The New York Yankees have known for a little over a month now that third baseman Alex Rodriguez would need surgery to repair a torn labrum, underlying impingement and a cyst in his left hip, but a date had not been set for the procedure until yesterday.

The two-hour operation will be performed next Wednesday, January 16 in New York, and will sideline the veteran until at least the All-Star break, reports Bryan Hoch of MLB.com:

Alex Rodriguez is scheduled to have his left hip surgically repaired on Jan. 16, and the Yankees are hopeful that he will be able to return to the big leagues around the All-Star break...

[Dr. Bryan] Kelly said that he believes the injury is to blame for Rodriguez's woeful performance in the playoffs, adding that A-Rod's hip issues are a genetic problem potentially tracing to childhood and not related to his admitted past use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Hoch adds that the reason that Rodriguez's surgery took so long to schedule is that doctors wanted A-Rod to complete a "prehab" program for his hip to make sure inflammation was down and that his surgically-repaired right hip was strong enough to handle most of the legwork during recovery (pun intended).

The tentative timeframe for Rodriguez's return remains at six months, but Dr. Kelly iterated that he will not know for sure until he is able to get a good look at the damage during the procedure next week.

Rodriguez underwent a similar procedure on his right hip prior to the 2009 season.