Kearns, Lopez Bring Returns After Trade

The other players the Reds received in the trade are either gone or haven't yet arrived. Shortstop Royce Clayton signed with Toronto as a free agent, infielder Brendan Harris was traded to Tampa Bay and minor league pitcher Daryl Thompson is in Class A.

The Nationals ended up with players who they expect to be keepers as they build what they hope will be a contending team. Kearns and Lopez -- who came over along with reliever Ryan Wagner, who is on the disabled list -- have overcome the initial, significant shock of the deal and have become comfortable with the Nationals. "You could almost say night and day," said Kearns, who even signed a three-year, $17.5 million contract in the offseason that has a $10 million club option for 2010.

"I think the whole thing [with returning to Cincinnati] will be stranger for Austin," Lopez said last week. "If they don't want me, why am I going to be upset about somebody that doesn't want me? These people wanted me, so I'm happy to be here."

Lopez pointed out that his more significant trip this season will be one in early June to Toronto because the Blue Jays are the team that originally developed him and brought him to the majors. Kearns, though, used to travel home to Lexington on off days. His father attended every home game. He had to ask his Nationals teammates which hotel the club stayed at, "because I've never stayed at a hotel in Cincinnati."

"I'm sure it'll be weird being in the other clubhouse," he said. "I can remember when guys that we used to play with [on the Reds] would come back into Cincinnati. We'd go stand by the third base dugout and talk to them, and it looked weird from over there because you never stand there as a Red. Now, I'll be over there."

When Kearns and Lopez were in Cincinnati -- Kearns first came up in 2002, Lopez was traded there the following season -- they were consistently part of teams that were building for the future, and they didn't enjoy a winning season with the Reds. Now, with both their current team and their former one in last place in their respective divisions, they are being told similar things about the building process in Washington. Kearns, for one, is buying it.

"We're in Washington, D.C., the capital -- pretty much -- of the world," Kearns said. "I think you're going to have to put a winner out there. Eventually, that's what the people here are going to want, in a market like this. People want to win. That's a good feeling. In Cincinnati, until they got new ownership last year, winning wasn't obviously the number one thing on people's minds there."

This week, the No. 1 thing on people's minds in Cincinnati could be the return of two former Reds -- and the fact that the players for whom they were traded won't be a factor in trying to beat them.