Max Scherzer pulling hair out waiting for return to Washington Nationals’ rotation

Max Scherzer was pulling his hair out waiting for the cortisone shot he received four days back to do its work and provide some relief from the back issue he’s been dealing with in the last few weeks that landed him on the Injured List.

“When you get a cortisone injection,” the 34-year-old Nationals’ ace explained before the second of four for Washington in Atlanta’s SunTrust Park.

“Usually after Day 3 that’s usually when you feel your best, in my experience all my life, and so yesterday I was kind of pulling my hair out because it was Day 3 and it wasn’t better.”

Both Nats’ skipper Davey Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo said this week that they’ve had a hard time keeping the three-time Cy Young winner off the mound, but they’ve been clear that he has to be 100% before he can graduate from tossing on flat ground to a bullpen session he needs to throw before he can return from the IL.

“We’re kind of stuck in a holding pattern right now,” Scherzer said. “As I’ve moved through this, going through the All-Star Break and coming out of this, we thought it was a muscle strain, turns out it’s more scapulothoracic bursitis, that’s a fancy name for saying yeah I’ve got inflammation between my scap and my ribs.

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“There’s nothing wrong structurally with the muscles, I’m strong, everything, the scap is strong, it’s just I’ve got this inflammation in the bursa sac there. Never knew you had one. So that’s kind of the diagnosis that has me pulling my hair out, but the good news is I’ve got a friend in Shawn Kelley, who’s in Texas, who I’ve been texting, and he’s actually going through the exact same thing right now. And I was texting with him last night, and to get rid of this you’ve got to get a cortisone injection, and he said when he got the injection it took five or six days for it to clear up.”

“But talking to Kelley it was five or six days and it worked for him. So right now I’m Day 4 of that, so I’m trying to stay optimistic and say here in a couple days I should be feeling really good if this goes exactly how we think it should.”

Scherzer won’t make his previous target date of Sunday night’s series finale with the Braves, but he might get to face the Nationals’ NL East rivals when they get to the nation’s capital at the end of the month (July 29-31st).