Max Scherzer was relieved to learn he hadn't suffered a muscle strain after exiting his latest start against the Giants in the first inning Friday night.
Scherzer exited the game after just 12 pitches and says he felt a tweak in his groin when delivering a 95-mph fastball to Brandon Belt, the second batter of the game.
"All of a sudden I felt my groin tweak on me," Scherzer said after the game. "When I had that happen, it's foreign for me to have that type of injury on that location of my body. Knew I needed to take a warm-up pitch. I couldn't look myself straight if I didn't throw another warm-up pitch."
Scherzer took an extra beat to compose himself, bending over at the waist on the mound and leaning from side to side at the knees and hips. As he stretched, manager Dave Martinez and head athletic trainer Paul Lessard made their way over to the mound.
Under their close supervision, Scherzer unloaded his first warm-up pitch, after which he let out a grimace. Martinez wasted no time giving Scherzer the hook and calling Paolo Espino from the pen, who pitched a noble 3.1 innings on short notice, allowing only one earned run. Unfortunately that one run — a solo homer to Buster Posey in the top of the fourth — wound up being the difference in the game, a 1-0 Giants win.
"Obviously once I made that warm-up pitch, it grabbed again in the same spot," Scherzer said. "It just wasn't an injury that you can pitch through."
"Now, fortunate enough, got the MRI back and the good news is that it's not a muscle strain," he said. "It's just a little inflammation of the abductor — fascia of the abductor. Something like that. Basically it's not a muscle strain.
"So it's really best-case scenario in terms of what the injury is in that I'm really day-to-day in that this could subside pretty quickly here."
Scherzer is in the midst of one of the best early season starts of his career, with a 5-4 record and a 2.22 ERA (career-best) after 13 starts.
