The UL baseball team’s pitching staff has been dealt a blow with the loss of junior righty Chase Traffica.

Traffica has returned home to Alabama to undergo Tommy John surgery next week, Ragin’ Cajuns coach Tony Robichaux confirmed through a school spokesman late Thursday night.

Tommy John surgery — a rather common procedure frequently performed by renowned Birmingham-based orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, among others — involves the replacement of a damaged elbow ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in the body.

Traffica — from Spain Park High in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, Ala. — announced plans for his surgery on his Twitter account earlier Thursday night.

According to Robichaux, Traffica "will be redshirted this year and ready to pitch next season."

Traffica was 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in 12 appearances and 26.2 innings, all in relief, for the Cajuns last season.

Robichaux had been talking about Traffica as a likely No. 3 starter behind Jordan Nicholson and Joe Zimmerman for UL this season — and about how he needed all three to stay healthy, especially early in the season.

"(Nicholson) has done a good job, Zimmerman’s done a great job (last) fall and so has Traffica," Robichaux said just last week. "Those three guys have our most experience, so we kind of expect "» them to be able to show the junior college transfers and the younger guys the ropes."

Last Tuesday, however, Robichaux instead named a starting rotation of Zimmerman, Nicholson and Bossier Parish Community College transfer Chris Griffitt for this weekend’s season-opening three games at the Texas State Bobcat Classic in San Marcos, Texas.

Traffica, Zimmerman and Peterson were all part of a UL staff that held opponents to five runs or fewer 39 times in 58 games last season.

The Cajuns went 27-12 in those 39 games.

That same staff had a collective ERA of 3.85 last year, leaving it in the Sun Belt Conference behind Florida International (3.68) and Troy (3.82). That marked just the third time in the past 12 seasons that UL has not led the Sun Belt in team ERA.