Nats say Max Scherzer has pitching finger injury, to miss WBC

WASHINGTON -- NL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer revealed Monday that he pitched at the end of last season with an injured finger on his throwing hand and now will skip the World Baseball Classic.

The Washington Nationals initially announced Monday on Twitter that their star right-hander has a stress fracture in the knuckle of his right ring finger, without offering any details of the problem. The team said the ongoing rehabilitation will keep Scherzer off the U.S. team at the WBC, which is in March, but he is still "expected to be a full participant" at spring training, which starts next month.

Later in the day, Scherzer posted his own statement on Twitter that said he "experienced discomfort" in his right ring finger in late August and was told he had a sprained finger.

From Aug. 20 through Oct. 2, a span that covered his last nine starts of the regular season for the NL East champion Nationals, Scherzer went 8-0 with a 2.97 ERA and 73 strikeouts in 60 innings. In the NL Division Series against theDodgers, Washington lost both of Scherzer's starts, in Games 1 and 5.

He said Monday that during the season, he and the Nationals' medical staff figured rest would help resolve the issue with his finger.

But, Scherzer explained, the symptoms "had not dissipated" by last month, so he underwent a second MRI exam, which revealed the stress fracture. He is currently undergoing treatment.

Scherzer went 20-7 with a 2.96 ERA and 284 strikeouts last season, including a record-tying 20 K's in one game. He became the sixth pitcher in major league history to win a Cy Young in both the NL and AL, the latter of which came in 2013 with the Detroit Tigers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.