Nats’ Hernandez says he’ll pitch through pain

WASHINGTON – Once he calmed down, Livan Hernandez wanted to make a few things clear Thursday: He won’t have knee surgery until after the season, he will keep taking the mound every five days, even in pain, and he would never quit on his club.

A day after saying during a rambling postgame interview session that he was thinking about having an operation, the Washington Nationals’ ace unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at reporters in the RFK Stadium home clubhouse before Thursday night’s game against Houston.

The gist of his several-minute outburst was that his comments about being “99.9 percent” sure he might have season-ending surgery and “I’m done, I think” after Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to the N.L.-worst Colorado Rockies came in the heat of the moment and weren’t reported accurately.

“You don’t know how I feel last night. You don’t know I got a bad leg. You don’t know I don’t sleep last night because my knee hurt. That was the problem,” Hernandez said.

“I’m going to make every start now. I don’t got no problem. I feel, last night, not good. … My knee looked like it want to explode last night.”