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Rays' top prospect Honeywell tears UCL; Tommy John surgery likely

Jasen Vinlove / USA TODAY Sports

Tampa Bay Rays top pitching prospect Brent Honeywell suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow and Tommy John surgery has been recommended, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

"It's a disappointment," Honeywell said. "Some unfortunate things happen. (I'll) bounce back from it."

The No. 12 prospect in baseball, per MLB Pipeline, suffered the injury while throwing live batting practice Thursday and was initially diagnosed with forearm tightness before being sent for further testing.

"Sometimes I think it's inevitable," Honeywell said. "People don't understand that. It's either going to go or it's not. It was one pitch - the first pitch to (Wilson) Ramos and I felt it pop. It was weird though, it was up my forearm. I've never had a significant injury like this so I didn't know what that feeling actually was, so I gripped it and tried to rip another one and it didn't come out the same. That's when my arm lit up a bit. I knew immediately what happened."

The 22-year-old was coming off an encouraging season split between Double- and Triple-A in which he posted a 3.49 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, and 172 strikeouts in 136 2/3 innings. He was expected to compete for a spot in the rotation following last week's trade of Jake Odorizzi to the Minnesota Twins.

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