{"id":583681,"date":"2026-02-20T22:43:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/583681\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:43:23","slug":"padres-reliever-yuki-matsuis-wbc-status-with-japan-in-question-due-to-groin-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/583681\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Reliever Yuki Matsui\u2019s WBC Status With Japan In Question Due To Groin Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\"><a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/san-diego-padres-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Diego Padres<\/a> reliever <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/mlb\/yuki-matsui-player\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yuki Matsui&#8217;s<\/a> status for <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/world-baseball-classic\/japan-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Japan<\/a> in the World Baseball Classic could be in doubt after the left-hander ended a batting practice session early due to left groin tightness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Matsui is considered day to day with what isn&#8217;t expected to be a long-term issue coming out of Thursday&#8217;s session, but it could affect his buildup for the <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/world-baseball-classic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WBC<\/a>, with the opener against Taiwan two weeks away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">&#8220;We\u2019ve got to see how he comes out of this day off, and then how he feels tomorrow,&#8221; Padres manager Craig Stammen said Friday. &#8220;Honestly, I think it puts the WBC in question.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Defending WBC champion Japan would take a hit in the bullpen without Matsui, a reliable middle-inning option in two seasons with the Padres. The 30-year-old has a 3.86 ERA over 125 appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Stammen said Matsui could be back to playing catch this weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Reporting by The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Padres reliever Yuki Matsui&#8217;s status for Japan in the World Baseball Classic could be in doubt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,2372,19,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,4820,7941],"class_list":{"0":"post-583681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-major-league-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-padres","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sandiegopadres","17":"tag-world-baseball-classic","18":"tag-yuki-matsui"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116105381494268612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}