{"id":595231,"date":"2026-02-27T01:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/595231\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T01:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T01:57:20","slug":"padres-reliever-yuki-matsui-ruled-out-of-wbc-for-japan-due-to-groin-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/595231\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Reliever Yuki Matsui Ruled Out of WBC for Japan Due to Groin Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Padres<\/a> reliever Yuki Matsui<\/a>\u2019s will not pitch for Japan<\/a> in the World Baseball Classic and the left-hander’s status for San Diego’s season opener in a month also is unclear because of a left groin strain.<\/p>\n

Matsui was still throwing off flat ground Thursday, a week after cutting short a batting practice session because of the groin.<\/p>\n

“Right now, I\u2019m just continuing the throwing progression, getting intensities and distances of (playing) catch back up,” Matsui told reporters through a translator. “Once it\u2019s good enough, then I\u2019ll start throwing off the mound. But as to when, we don\u2019t know yet.”<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Matsui, who is 7-3 with a 3.86 ERA in 125 appearances in two seasons since signing a $28 million, five-year with Padres, also said he wasn’t sure yet about opening day. San Diego’s opener is March 26 at home against Detroit.<\/p>\n

Defending WBC<\/a> champion Japan opens against Taiwan on March 6 at the Tokyo Dome. Matsui was replaced on Japan\u2019s roster by left-hander Yumeto Kanemaru of the Chunichi Dragons.<\/p>\n

“I was looking forward to playing with them,” Matsui said. “I think the Tokyo games, because of the time differences, I don\u2019t think I can watch in real time. But I believe they\u2019re going to make it to the round in Miami. And I think that\u2019s when I\u2019ll be able to watch live, and cheer for them.”<\/p>\n

Before the 5-foot-8 Matsui joined the Padres, he had a 2.40 career ERA, 236 saves and a 1.11 WHIP over 10 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball. He was the youngest pitcher in the Japanese major leagues to reach 200 saves,. He made his Japanese big league debut at age 18 in 2014 and became a five-time All-Star for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, leading the Pacific League in saves in 2019, 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Padres reliever Yuki Matsui\u2019s will not pitch for Japan in the World Baseball Classic and the left-hander’s status…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2372,19,2353,2352,18,4820,7941],"class_list":{"0":"post-595231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-npb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-major-league-baseball","11":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","12":"tag-npb","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-world-baseball-classic","15":"tag-yuki-matsui"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116140117181898738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595231","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=595231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}