After left-handed Red Sox reliever Rich Hill was forced from a game with an elbow injury, he passed some early tests on his UCL, suggesting that the damage wasn't too bad. But some better tests after that showed that the damage was quite bad after all, as Hill was shown to have a mostly torn ligament. After some discussion, it has come to this:

Rich Hill will undergo Tommy John elbow surgery tomorrow in Pensacola, Fla. Dr. James Andrews to do surgery

Ligament replacement surgery. It seemed inevitable once Hill's UCL was shown to be torn, and now it's on the schedule. As such, Hill is finished for 2011, and he probably won't return until the middle of 2012.

Hill has undergone major surgery before, but that was on his shoulder labrum, and now one has to wonder if the 31-year-old will ever make it back to the Majors. It would be a shame if he didn't, since Hill was having good success out of the Boston bullpen before getting hurt.

Tommy Hottovy is currently serving as Boston's southpaw reliever.