One of the best stories in the Red Sox minor league system has taken an unfortunate turn.

Noah Song, a former top pitching prospect who recently resumed his career after spending four years away from baseball serving in the U.S. Navy, needs Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire 2024 season.

News of Song’s injury was first reported by Chris Hatfield of SoxProspects.com and was confirmed by a Red Sox source.

Song, a 26-year-old right-hander, was once viewed as a first-round talent after a stellar college career at Navy but fell to the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft due to uncertainty surrounding his military obligations. He wound up appearing in seven games with the Lowell Spinners towards the end of the 2019 season but spent the next four years completing flight school, and it wasn’t until 2023 that he had a waiver approved that would allow him to resume his baseball career.

Before that waiver even cleared, Song’s journey took an unexpected turn when he was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft. That meant the Phillies had to keep him on their major league roster for the entire season or he’d have to be offered back to Boston, so when his waiver was approved in February of 2023 he suddenly found himself on the fast track to the big leagues despite having not thrown a pitch in four years.

Song wound up tweaking his back amid that rapid ramp-up and once healthy was understandably rusty. He was eventually returned to the Red Sox after the Phillies couldn’t justify giving him a big league roster spot, and towards the end of last season he was given a more developmentally-appropriate assignment at High-A Greenville and finished with a 4.15 ERA over 21.2 innings.

The expectation coming into this season was Song would have an opportunity to earn a spot in the upper minors, likely at Double-A Portland first, but now he’ll be sidelined for at least another year, a devastating setback for a pitcher who has already missed out on so much time.