Kearns To Have Surgery; Will Miss 3-4 Weeks

Straight from the Nats Press Release:

NATIONALS PLACE RIGHT FIELDER AUSTIN KEARNS ON 15-DAY DL

The Washington Nationals today placed right fielder Austin Kearns on the 15-Day Disabled List (right elbow). The Nationals will make a corresponding roster move prior to tomorrow’s series opener vs. Milwaukee. Nationals Senior Vice President and General Manager Jim Bowden made the announcement.

Tomorrow, Kearns will have arthroscopic surgery performed by Dr. Tim Kremchek in Cincinnati, OH, to remove loose bodies in his right elbow. He is expected to miss 3-4 weeks.

Kearns, 28, is currently batting .187 (28-for-150) with three home runs and 16 RBI in 42 games.

BOTTOM(FEEDER) LINE: Hard to imagine Kearns only missing 3-4 weeks with elbow surgery, but this certainly explains a lot of things with him this season. He says that he injured the elbow in BP up in Baltimore, but an acute injury that produces "loose bodies" sounds pretty fishy--pardon the pun. We imagine Kearns has been having trouble with the elbow for a while, but did not want to use it as an excuse for the poor play. Reason does not equal excuse, and pain sometimes is just pain and sometimes it's injury. Looks like this time it was injury.

The team has not issued a corresponding move as of yet. It will be really interesting to see which way they go with this. One guess: we'll see Ryan Langerhans back in the bigs. He's been hitting well in Triple-A, and has big league experience. Bowden said yesterday he wouldn't "rush" Maxwell or Daniel, so the guess here is ol' Langerhans, especially considering how right-handed the OF is.

Photo (c) C. Nichols 2008