By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2007

Washington Nationals first baseman Nick Johnson, whose recovery from a broken leg has slogged along much more slowly than initially expected, won't play for the rest of the season, General Manager Jim Bowden said yesterday.

Johnson's recovery from the broken right leg -- suffered in a violent collision with right fielder Austin Kearns last Sept. 23 -- was slowed because he has struggled to regain strength and flexibility in his right hip. As part of the surgery performed the night of the injury, Johnson had a titanium rod inserted through the hip and into his femur.

Johnson traveled yesterday to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for a visit with hip specialist David Lewallen, who diagnosed bursitis and recommended Johnson undergo surgery to take out the rod in his femur and a small stabilizing screw. The surgery will be performed tomorrow.

"With the pain, it just never went away in the hip," Johnson said. "It just got to the point where that pain, it just seemed to just get in there and chill out."

Nationals orthopedist Ben Shaffer, who initially said that he expected Johnson would be ready for spring training, said he was "surprised" at the length of Johnson's recovery. Johnson has been slowed by knee stiffness, a femur that was slow to heal and now the bursitis in his hip.

"He's kind of proven that he's an outlier in terms of some of the lesser common problems," Shaffer said.

The doctors insist Johnson's career is not in jeopardy.

"The bottom line is they feel like he will come back and make a full recovery," Bowden said, "that we think he'll be ready to go in spring training of next year."

Johnson's slow recovery shocked Nationals officials. On March 21, Shaffer said, "We're not looking at this as a season-threatening issue."

Yet as Johnson began to work out during the season -- running sprints and performing agility drills, taking grounders and batting practice -- it became clear that his movement still was limited.

"He couldn't quite get to the ground ball to his left," Bowden said. "His hitting was coming along great. There's no question in our minds that he had made tremendous progress offensively. But the hip just wasn't allowing him to be Nick Johnson."