Scherzer says back issue 'isn't a long-term injury'

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Don't worry too much about this.

The back injury that will force Max Scherzer to miss his scheduled start Saturday is not a "long-term injury," the ace of the Washington Nationals said Friday. 

"This is not something to be overly concerned about," Scherzer told reporters. "We're only a matter of days. This isn't a long-term injury."

When might Scherzer return to the hill?

“Tuesday’s realistic,” Scherzer said. “That’s what we’re hoping for. That’s where we’re just in a matter of days here. This is not a major thing. We know exactly what this is. We know it’s muscular."

"Everybody has a very good bead on what this is. We just know it’s not major. We know it’s minor. That’s where we’ve been kind of lucky to have the All-Star break to get the rest that I need. I was hoping to pitch Sunday, but the math is just not going to work out for that," he said.

Before Friday night's win, manager Davey Martinez told the media Scherzer had an MRI during the All-Star break. 

"He was sore after his last start,” Martinez said. “He had an MRI during the break. It came back negative. But he’s sore, so we talked and we decided to just push him back a couple of days and see how he feels.

“We’re at a point now where he went through an unbelievable run and we’re just trying to take care of him.”

Scherzer said he had trouble recovering from his last start before the break

“The pause for concern is that we tried to get it going for the Kansas City start and wasn’t able to recover from the Kansas City start. Now you got to go on a little different protocol to make sure I’m 100 percent right before I step on the mound again," he said.

Mad Max traveled to the All-Star Game, but announced before the game, like teammate Anthony Rendon, he would not play in the game.

"We anticipated for (the back) to kind of loosen up over the All-Star break and maybe play catch Tuesday at the game," Scherzer said. "It was just still tight. Just wasn’t free enough for me to play catch. When you start doing the math on the days, I need to throw a bullpen, it just wasn’t going to happen before Sunday.”

But Scherzer is upbeat about getting back on schedule.

“Going forward, I absolutely trust everybody in the medical staff, their opinions, their diagnosis of what this is and how soon I should be ready to be back on the mound,” he said.

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On 106.7 The Fan Saturday, Thom Loverro and Chris Russell broke down the latest on Scherzer's injury and the Nationals' 4-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies with NBC Sports Washington's Todd Dybas.

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