IN BRIEF : Shoulder Sidelines Twins’ Backman

Minnesota Twins second baseman Wally Backman won’t play during three games in Oakland because of his ailing left shoulder.

Backman, who sat out his third consecutive game Sunday against the Chicago White Sox, had received cortisone injections that morning. He has inflammation of a tendon in his left shoulder. He took injections in the tendon and in the bursa sac, between the tendon and the bone, from orthopedist John Steubs.

Backman was on the disabled list May 8 to May 25 with a sprained left shoulder.

“It just never stopped hurting,” Backman said. “The more I played with it, the more it got worse.”