01:00 AM EST on Friday, March 31, 2006

Anna Benson wants a divorce from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Kris Benson, who still thinks the New York Mets traded him because of his impulsive wife.

Anna Benson, an actress and model who has posed topless, filed for divorce in Atlanta yesterday. The petition for divorce claims the marriage is "irretrievably broken."

The couple has been married for seven years.

Kris Benson initially protested the deal that sent him to the Orioles. But now he thinks the Mets did him a favor.

"I was a little upset because I enjoyed my time in New York and I feel like they had a good team coming into the season," Benson said in a recent interview. "But now that I realize the opportunity I have, it's going to be a good career move for me."

Now, it appears as if he will go it alone.

In 2005, his first full season with the Mets, Benson allowed three runs or fewer in 19 starts. He was 10-8 with a 4.31 E.R.A., and New York won 17 of the 28 games in which he pitched.

Despite those numbers, the right-hander was traded to the Orioles in January for pitchers Jorge Julio and John Maine. There was speculation that the deal was perpetuated by the behavior of Anna, who has her own Web site and publicly discussed intimate details of their sex life.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya contended that Anna Benson was not a factor in the trade. Kris Benson isn't buying it.

"New York is just a world of its own. I knew that coming in, but you learn that a little more when you get put in the spotlight like that in a negative and undeserving way," Kris Benson said. "It was a little frustrating at the time because people kind of believe what they read. For her it's been a little tough, because they kind of portray her in a negative light."

Anna Benson wore a provocative dress at the team's Christmas party, and there was talk that she was considering posing nude for Playboy. Kris Benson bristles at the memory.

"We learned a lot from the whole situation. You look at some of the things that were said, some of the lies that were passed, who believes what, who your friends are, who your friends aren't," he said.

He said Anna never had a serious conversation with representatives from Playboy, and that her attire at the party was "not as revealing as people say it is. The only thing they fed off is when she kind of bent over and someone took a picture of it. It's an exaggeration of the truth, and now the Mets are going to miss out on a quality starter and the Orioles are going to benefit."

Benson still finds the reasoning behind the trade to be perplexing, but he knows for certain that the Mets will ultimately regret dealing him away.

"Some people are already seeing the trade as a negative thing. There are a lot of things that don't add up when it comes to the reasoning behind it," he said.

ROUNDUP ROYALS-ASTROS TRADE: The Royals traded utilityman Joe McEwing to the Astros yesterday for a player to be named. McEwing, a non-roster invitee to Royals camp, hit .436 with a .600 slugging percentage in 21 spring training games. But that performance failed to win him the utility infielder job. After the Royals claimed Tony Graffanino off waivers from the Red Sox on Tuesday, manager Buddy Bell told McEwing he would be reassigned to minor-league camp.

EATON IS AILING: Adam Eaton could be out of the Rangers' rotation for one to three months with a strained tendon in the middle finger on his pitching hand, the same injury that sidelined him last season. Manager Buck Showalter said team physician Dr. Keith Meister told him rock-climbers are the only people who get the kind of injury Eaton suffered while throwing a curveball against his former team, San Diego, in the second inning of a spring training game Wednesday.

SHEETS ON DL: Brewers ace Ben Sheets will begin the season on the disabled list. Sheets, who strained a muscle in his upper back in a spring training game March 9, was placed on the 15-day disabled list yesterday. The move was retroactive to March 24 and he will be eligible to come off the disabled list on April 8.