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BRADENTON, Fla. -- Without Kip Wells, the Pirates' clubhouse will be quieter than usual for a while.

He is the unquestioned leader of the pitching staff, a mentor to some. He also is "the team clown," as fellow starter Ryan Vogelsong calls him, as well as the guy in charge of spinning everything from Coldplay to the classics on the room's massive boom box.

But his absence will not be nearly as long as feared, the players learned early yesterday morning, and that was music to their ears.

General manager Dave Littlefield confirmed that Wells, who had surgery Monday to repair a blocked artery in his right armpit, is expected to rejoin the Pirates' rotation by the All-Star break. He can begin rehabilitation within four to six weeks, after which his recovery will be a simple matter of regaining strength in his arm.

"Fantastic," Vogelsong said. "You kind of expect the worst and hope for the best, so this was great news. Kip's such a big part of what we do."

"He's the guy we look to on this staff, and he's got the best stuff in the rotation," another starter, Sean Burnett, said. "Hopefully, he'll make a speedy recovery and be back out there for us."

The All-Star break is July 10-12, meaning the prognosis is for Wells to miss the Pirates' first 90 games. That is not ideal, obviously, but the team -- and Wells -- had plenty of cause for concern that it could be the entire season.

Dr. Robert Thompson, a vascular surgeon at Washington University, diagnosed Wells Feb. 25 as having complete blockage of the axillary artery, the primary blood vessel from the heart to the right arm. But he was uncertain what he would find during surgery Monday at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and he told Wells as much.

The worst case was that he would find Wells' artery constricted by a rib that would need to be removed. In that event, Wells would miss eight months and the entire season.

The best case was that no bone was constricting the artery and that Wells would need nothing more than a vein graft. That was exactly what happened.

"It really came off similar to what Dr. Thompson thought would happen," Littlefield said. "Considering all things, I think it is a good result."

Pirates reliever Roberto Hernandez had a vein graft in June 1991 and was back on the mound in August of that year.

Vogelsong, a close friend of Wells, stayed in touch throughout the process.

"I know he had a lot of concerns going into this surgery, how he was going to come out of it, how long it was going to take," Vogelsong said. "I'm sure he's pretty excited about coming back this soon."

In Thompson's two-hour surgery, he removed a secondary vein from Wells' leg and used it to replace 4 inches of the damaged artery. It should take three weeks for the artery to heal.

It remains unclear exactly what clogged Wells' artery, but the most likely explanation is a condition called effort thrombosis. It results from a repetitive and stressful arm motion -- such as pitching -- when the humerus bone rubs against the artery and irritates it.

"It's a very unusual area for a player to have that problem," Littlefield said.

He reiterated that Wells' problem had nothing to do with the numbness he felt in his right hand throughout the 2004 season or the minor corrective procedure in October of that year.

"It's completely unrelated."

Wells will stay in the hospital for two or three days, then return to his home in Houston and begin his rehabilitation there.

The focus of that work will be restoring the strength and range of motion in his arm that he is going to lose as a result of inactivity.

"It will be more about the atrophy of not having thrown and not having used the shoulder for a while," Littlefield said.

There also is certain to be a rehabilitation stint in the minor leagues before he pitches in Pittsburgh.

Burnett, coming off a year and a half of rehabilitating from two surgeries, expressed empathy and optimism about Wells' recovery.

"It's tough going into the clubhouse every day knowing you're not going to play. It's a long road, and it seems even longer right after surgery," Burnett said. "But it goes by quicker if you've got a good work ethic, and he's got the best one in this clubhouse. I'm saying he'll be back before anyone knows it."