In the wake of receiving the news that he was most likely going to have to undergo elbow surgery, Pablo López went through a list of those he felt he had let down: himself, the Twins, his family. If all that wasn’t enough, he added his country to the list.

López was committed to pitch for Venezuela in the upcoming World Baseball Classic before he injured his right elbow early during spring training. Among the many things that suddenly had been ripped away from him, there was that, too.

“It just adds another element that I’m just navigating internally, of feeling disappointed, frustrated and powerless at the time,” López said in the days before undergoing Tommy John surgery on Wednesday.

While many of the Twins who had originally planned to compete in the World Baseball Classic have pulled out — López, Taj Bradley (Mexico) and Liam Hendriks (Australia) — there are still four, and potentially five, in the Twins clubhouse who will be departing Fort Myers, Fla., soon to compete in the tournament.

For center fielder Byron Buxton, when the call came from Team USA manager Mark DeRosa in November, there wasn’t much convincing needed.

“He’s like ‘You in?’ and I was like ‘Let’s go,’ ” Buxton said.

Buxton said he had a chance to go to the tournament when he was younger but “stuff didn’t line up.” The tournament takes place every three years, and this time around, Buxton is fully healthy — and coming off the most productive year of his career.

He wasn’t going to miss out again.

“(It) means a lot to be able to put your country’s jersey on and represent,” Buxton said. “That’s an honor. … To be able to have an opportunity, to be able to put that jersey on, finally, is something special.”

Buxton is supposed to be joined by teammate Joe Ryan, who also represented the United States at the Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo, but as of Friday morning, the Twins still had not said whether that would happen. Ryan has some lower back inflammation that flared up before he was supposed to pitch in his first spring training game.

The tournament is set for March 5-17 and Team USA is meeting to train in Arizona first before starting pool play in Houston.

The U.S. will compete in the same pool as Italy, for which Twins non-roster invite Dan Alvatilla will compete. Altavilla said he tried to play in the tournament in 2017 but the restrictions for who could play were tighter at that point. He was hurt the last time around, but this time he was eager for the opportunity.

Altavilla has eligibility through his great-grandfather, who was born in Italy. Proving his eligibility meant hunting through family history, and he enjoyed getting to see his great-grandfather’s birth certificate and paperwork from Ellis Island.

“This is my chance to represent my family, my great-grandfather being born over there,” Altavilla said. “I think it was just a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Fellow non-roster invite Matt Bowman is competing for Team Israel. He gained his eligibility through his wife, Eve. Bowman spent parts of the last two seasons in Baltimore, where he was teammates with Dean Kremer, who was born in the United States to Israeli parents. Kremer was the one who realized Bowman qualified and that got the ball rolling.

“The WBC is an interesting tournament,” Bowman said. “The opportunities to play in the WBC are somewhat limited, so I jumped at the opportunity to try a new baseball experience.”

The last Twin going, Gio Urshela, is a WBC veteran, having played for Colombia in both 2017 and 2023. Though he’s in camp as a non-roster invite competing for a spot on the major league team, Urshela wasn’t going to pass up the chance to go to the tournament.

“I’m really excited,” he said. “Representing my country is always something that makes me proud.”

Related Articles

Twins rotation depth takes another hit with David Festa setback

Twins starter Taj Bradley opts out of World Baseball Classic

With four weeks to go until Opening Day, a look at four roster battles

Minnesota native John Klein in camp with Twins: “My entire life I’ve wanted to be here”

Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers ready to be ‘a full-time catcher’