KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -They opened the season by sweeping the Tigers in Detroit and long-suffering fans sat slack-jawed, wondering if the Kansas City Royals finally had turned the corner.
But the first half of the season was a roller coaster ride for the Royals faithful: a seven-game losing streak, a five-game win streak, a 12-game losing streak, then an 11-1 stretch that included a three-game sweep of the Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Kansas City fans are once again circling dates on the calendar and wondering if they ought to plan a trip to the ballpark.
As they began an eight-game road swing to Baltimore and Tampa Bay on Monday, the streaky, hard-to-figure Royals left behind a town full of hopeful-but-puzzled fans.
When May turned to June, manager Trey Hillman’s first Royals team changed character. The bums that lost 12 straight won 11 out of 12, an in-season Jekyll-and-Hyde act unlike any in the major leagues since 1994, when Oakland lost 12 in a row and later won 13 of 14.
This past weekend as they ended interleague play for 2008 and marked the halfway point of the season, the Royals lost two in a row at home to the Cardinals. Maybe they’ll come back from the Baltimore-Tampa Bay trip on a 10-game losing streak. Or perhaps they’ll ride back into town on an eight-game winning streak.
For a that’s been firecracker-hot one week and cold as January rainwater the next, anything seems possible.
“There is momentum in baseball,” general manager Dayton Moore said. “You have a couple of guys in the lineup hitting well, and others feed off that. You get a couple of pitchers performing well, the rest of the staff can feed off that.”
Although he didn’t say much about it at the time, Hillman admits now that he was deeply worried when the May skid neared 12 losses in a row.
“I was very fearful after the 12-game losing streak that if we weren’t able to do even close to what we’ve done in the last couple of weeks, that these guys might have lost confidence for an extended period of time and might not have gotten it back during the 2008 season,” Hillman said.
He saw something encouraging early in the 11-of-12 turnaround, when the Royals were busy winning two out of three from Arizona on June 13-15.
“There was a calm and there was a little bit lighter atmosphere,” he said. “We started hitting, started pitching better. We got almost two times through the rotation with quality starts. We started scoring some runs.
“It was a relief, no doubt. I had no idea we were going to win two out of three in Arizona and then sweep the Cardinals in their ballpark. But I’m glad it worked out that way. And that’s what I’m most proud of.”
The first pieces of the long-range plan Moore put in place when he was made general manager two years ago seem to be sliding into place. The pitching staff, long an American League eyesore, has grown into a respectable unit.
The starting staff, at least during the hot steaks, has shown marked improvement. Plus, closer Joakim Soria – a “find” by the expanded scouting staff that Moore insisted he be allowed to have – is a prime candidate for an All-Star berth, with 21 saves in 22 opportunities and an ERA of 1.29.
The promotion of shortstop Mike Aviles from Triple-A Omaha coincided with the latest turnaround while the defense as been above-average all year. And the offense – with free agent acquisition Jose Guillen mixing home runs and RBIs with profanity-laced tirades against teammates and fans – has shown more life than any Royals team in about five years.
“I think we’ve learned mostly through the rough stretches that we could climb out of it, as we’ve done here the last couple of weeks,” Hillman said. “Obviously, we wish we didn’t have the seven (losses) in a row and the 12 in a row. But we’ve rebounded pretty well.
“We’ve just got to continue to play pretty good baseball. But I think everyone understands we’ve got to be able to put the pitching and the offense and the defense together.”
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