Semi-OT: Trouble brewing in Cincy?

In late April, Cincinnati's right-fielder Wily Mo Peña went down with an injury; instead of being replaced with Austin Kearns, second-baseman Ryan Freel was moved to right, SS Feilpe Lopez moved to 2nd and veteran Rich Aurilia played SS. Since then, Aurilia has essentially replaced Kearns in the lineup which is something that Kearns was not too happy about as he was considered to be the highest on the OF depth chart out of Spring Training.

Well this weekend Kearns had a smokin' series against the Dodgers with 2 2-run homers. To his amazement, he was not in the starting lineup for Sunday's game. Consequently, he spoke out about his current issues with playing time to the media:

Kearns was pulled from Saturday's game shortly after the homer as part of a double-switch. And when he reported to work Sunday afternoon, Kearns was frustrated to find his name out of the lineup once again. Asked if he ever knows what to expect when scoping out the lineup, Kearns just shook his head.

"I sure don't," he said with a sigh.

While this in itself does not make for controversy, today's Yahoo edition of Ken Rosenthal's Inside Dish has a take on Kearns:

The Braves remain interested in Reds OF Austin Kearns, who also is on the Royals' and Nationals' wish lists. The Reds, however, don't want to trade Kearns until he increases his value to the point where they will get a quality pitcher in return. The Braves' first move likely will be to promote OF Kelly Johnson, a left-handed hitter who has batted .321 with five homers and 15 RBIs in 106 at-bats at Class AAA. . . .

So while it looks like the A's may not be interested according to Rosenthal, if they were to inquire on Kearns, they may have the best chips out of the three teams as Atlanta is the team with the top minor league talent and they will not part with their two top prospects, pitcher Kyle Davies or 3rd bagger Andy Marte for Kearns. There is also the question of how much weight a player creates when he demands a trade as that could diminish the team's ability to demand top quality. Then there is the issue of health regarding Kearns and the fact that he is being benched for the .216/.247/.386-hitting Aurilia.