Twins closer Joe Nathan has pulled  himself out of the World Baseball Classic because of a sore acromioclavicular joint, better known as the AC joint.

Nathan gave up a run on Wednesday during the spring training opener and hasn’t pitched since.

It’s unclear how sore he is. I know better than to speculate on anything right now. So we’ll let you know as soon as more details are available.

11:45 update: Nathan said he felt a tinge of discomfort sometime during the offseason but thought nothing of it. But it flared up last week, so he was given three days off,

He actually threw in the bullpen today and will do so on Tuesday. He feels more comfortable staying in camp, where Twins doctors can watch him. He’d also be hurting Team USA if he tried to pitch. WBC teams are scheduling which days they can use certain pitchers, and it would be hard to determine when Nathan would be available. And there’s the other issue of the Twins trying to win the division.

“I have to take  a step back and look at the big picture,” he said 

Blogging note:  Tomorrow is an off-day and there is no workout scheduled. So it’s 50-50 if I’ll post anything. Just a heads up. 

Lineups

Boston: 1. Lugo, SS. 2. Pedroia, 2B. 3. Big Papi, DH. 4. Youkilis, 1B. 5. Baldelli, RF. 6. Paul McAnulty, LF. 7. Bard, C. 8. Angel Chavez, 3B. 9. Jonanthan Van Every, CF.  Pitching: Beckett.

Twins: 1. Span, LF. 2. Casilla, 2B. 3. Cuddy, RF. 4. Morneau, 1B. 5. Crede, DH. 6. Buscher, 3B. 7. Redmond, C. 8. Punto, SS. 9. Gomez, CF. Pitching: Slowey. Perkins, Guerrier, Breslow, Mijares and Humber also scheduled to pitch.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under preseason. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.