When he wants to do some real reporting, Joel Sherman's stuff can be very good. That was the case with his exclusive interview in The Post today with the doctor scheduled to perform Alex Rodriguez's upcoming left hip surgery. You can find the entire interview here, and you should definitely read the whole thing, but here are the highlights:
- According to the doctor, Dr. Bryan Kelly, the hip injury was not caused by steroid use but there was "no doubt" that the injury was cause for A-Rod's poor postseason performance.
- Dr. Kelly on the severity of the injury: “I was more surprised that he was able to play at all with a hip that looked like that. Most people would not be able to play with a hip function like this and the imaging that looked like his.”
- The surgery is expected to be performed within the next 2-4 weeks. There is still lingering joint inflammation in the injured hip, which Dr. Kelly wants gone before the surgery.
- While Dr. Kelly said he believed A-Rod would be able to return from surgery and "perform at a level commensurate to his past production," he did have 3 major concerns that could negatively affect the final results:
1) Unknown level of joint damage that can only be ID'd during the surgery
2) Unknown impact of left hip surgery and rehab on the previously-injured right hip
3) A-Rod's age
Those concerns are the biggest news I'm taking from Sherman's piece, and the fact that there is still lingering damage in the hip that's pushing the surgery timetable back is not a good thing. But it's also not like any of this comes as a major surprise given A-Rod's recent injury history and his age. Anybody with half a brain anticipates he's going to come back from this a shell of his former self, and these details from his doctor just reinforce that belief in me.
P.S.- The Center for Hip Pain and Preservation at the Hospital for Special Surgery sounds like a fun place, huh?
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