Alex Rodriguez out 4-6 months after hip surgery

Alex Rodriguez will likely miss a chunk of the beginning of the 2013 season, as he will undergo surgery on a torn labrum in his left hip that could prevent him from playing for up to half a year.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Rodriguez will have the surgery performed sometime in January, and that the New York Yankees are optimistically hoping that their third baseman will be ready to play in June.

[This news might change the Yankees' to-do list]

The injury explains some of Rodriguez's poor performance in this season's playoffs: the three-time MVP was 3-for-25 in the postseason, leading to Joe Girardi subbing the third baseman out of several games in favor of pinch hitters and eventually benching him. Rodriguez had felt pain in his hip during the playoffs, leading to an MRI being performed on his right hip. Rodriguez had torn his labrum in that hip in 2009, and doctors feared there had been a re-tear, but Sherman reports that the injury Rodriguez was dealing with is the same injury, but on the other side of his body.