Via Bill Shaikin, here's one definition of "emergency surgery":

Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said Sunday if the surgery had not been performed that Ellis was mere hours away from losing his lower left leg.

Mattingly said Dr. Neal ElAttrache told him the muscle might have died if surgeons had performed the fasciotomy six or seven hours later.

Surgeons cut an approximately six-inch incision on the outside of his left calf Saturday to drain blood and fluid that was applying severe pressure to the muscle. Ellis is scheduled to remain in the hospital to allow continued drainage until the flap is sewed back on Tuesday.

So, yeah. That's sort of scary. Of course, we might wonder if there was actually some chance of the surgery not being performed in time. Good doctors are usually pretty good at noticing such things, and I believe that no baseball player has ever suffered an injury that ultimately resulted in the loss of a limb.

Still: scary. And, frankly, sort of gruesome.

Ellis is expected to miss around six weeks. In Ellis's absence, 27-year-old rookie Elian Herrera has taken the reins at second base, though he's hardly a long-term solution and the Dodgers might look elsewhere before long. And with Juan Uribe out of action lately, the club's already been playing utility man Adam Kennedy at third base.