"There are some key differences between baseball's second-most talked about hip surgery and its first, so when evaluating Alex Gordon's rehab, it's probably best to forget about Alex Rodriguez's.

Most notably, the tear in Gordon's right hip labrum is from a trauma, as opposed to Rodriguez's, which is more of a chronic problem.

The good news: that means Gordon's injury is likely to heal better than Rodriguez's.

"It's the difference between a car accident and wearing out your hip," said John Dougherty, a specialist in sports medicine at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, who has performed more than 200 surgeries similar to Gordon's.

"It's better to have the car accident, because you can fix it."

Gordon, who hasn't talked publicly since the surgery, is doing the first part of his rehab in Colorado, where he had the procedure last week. Royals physical therapist Jeff Blum will fly to Colorado on Wednesday to talk with the doctors and therapists there, and to watch Gordon's rehabs.

Gordon will then come back to Kansas City later this week and do the rest of his rehab here.

General manager Dayton Moore expects Gordon to complete a minor-league assignment before joining the Royals at some point in late June or early July. All indications are that once he's back, Gordon will be 100 percent physically and won't require a second surgery - like the one Rodriguez will likely have this offseason.

"Once he gets back, I expect him to be productive for the rest of the season," Moore said. "It never really bothered him hitting. He felt it when he'd run, but not all the time. When he felt it the most was when he was an infielder, exploding to his left. That's when it really hurt, that lateral movement."

Gordon's rehab consists of a series of stretches and exercises to improve the range of motion for his hip joint, isometric work for his legs, and time on a stationary bike. He does that routine twice each day.

The goal is for Gordon to be as close to pain-free as possible with full range of motion before he comes back to Kansas City, where he'll do much of the same work.

Dougherty, the surgeon, describes the injury in terms of a Tupperware bowl. The rim around the edge of the lid is the labrum, and in effect that rim has been torn. Basically, the surgery sews it back together and the cartilage should heal just as the labrum in a shoulder would.

The hip is a ball-and-socket joint, and part of what typically leads to these injuries is that the ball or socket is oversized. With the Tupperware example, it would be like adding the bill of a ballcap which would tear apart the rim from constant pinching. In that way, it's like biting your cheek. Bite it often enough and the inside of your cheek is torn up.

In Gordon's situation, it's like he was punched in the mouth - trauma instead of wear-and-tear.

Dougherty said he once performed this surgery on a senior elite level d