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PrintIf someone offered you a fantasy-league lineup that featured an outfield of Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran, you'd probably accept.
So, too, would the Kansas City Royals.
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It's difficult to remember that the Royals had exactly that outfield in the 1999-2000 seasons.
Since then, the financially challenged Royals have slipped way under the baseball radar. And what little attention they receive has everything to do with how bad they've become.
As Whitey Herzog recently mentioned to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Herzog, who managed successfully in St. Louis in the 1980s, also managed the Royals successfully in the 1970s.
"The last eight years, attendance has been dropping and the team keeps getting worse," Herzog said. "It's almost like Montreal, where they used to have a lot of good [former] players throughout the league. The Royals have a lot of players in the league who were once Royals, but they aren't any more."
The Royals, headed for a third consecutive 100-loss season, limped into the weekend 10-35 and dragging a 13-game losing streak after Thursday's improbable loss to Detroit.
"It's getting to be pretty sickening," first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz told the Kansas City Star. "I'm sick to my stomach losing every day. It's inexcusable."
"It's frustrating," pitcher Scott Elarton said. "As a group, we're not very good. We've got to figure things out or it's going to be a long, miserable summer."
It's already been a long, miserable spring.
"It's just a vicious cycle, and we're stuck in it," Elarton said. "It doesn't look like anybody cares about it, [and] if nobody cares about it, it's just going to get worse."
Worse?
"I don't care if Casey Stengel's our manager and [we have] the greatest general manager in history," Elarton said. "If the [players] aren't willing to put out the effort and do what they're capable of doing, it's not going to get any better."
Beleaguered manager Buddy Bell can only sigh and try to be optimistic.
"What we're going through, you know it's going to change," he said. "We know that. But we need it to change pretty soon."
The Brewers' right mix
Milwaukee manager Ned Yost had a short and stinky summation after his team's 16-10 loss to Minnesota a week ago.
"Pee-yew," he said.
For the most part, however, the Brewers have picked up where they ended last season. They've hung around .500 this year after last season ending a 12-year run of non-winning .campaigns last year.
That 81-81 record in 2006 represented a kind of breakthrough for the Brewers.
"They did more than kind of break through last season," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "They did break through last year."
The infusion of youngsters J.J. Hardy (on the disabled list with a sprained ankle), Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder into the lineup has helped immensely.
"Those guys have already gained the respect of their teammates," general manager Doug Melvin told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "They have a great work ethic. They're baseball rats. They've played together, hung out together. Those kinds of things are special -- to have three young players like that on the infield. That doesn't happen very often."
Pujols: 'No home-run hitter'
Seems as if we can't go a week without a mention of Albert Pujols, and this week is no exception.
Primarily because St. Louis visited San Francisco last week and Barry Bonds and Pujols chatted, the talk has begun about the Cardinals' first baseman breaking Bonds' single-season home run record of 73. Pujols is trying to nip that stuff right in the bud.
"I'm not a home-run hitter," Pujols told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "[Mark] McGwire is a home-run hitter. Bonds is a home-run hitter. I'm a line-drive hitter with power, and that's it. I just try to hit for average. Hopefully, if I put a good swing on the ball, it's going to go out of the park."
The Angels' fall
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim -- or whatever they're called -- were picked by most people to win the West Division of the American League this year.
The Angels, however, dug themselves quite a hole by losing 18 of 23 games before beating Texas early last week. That skid dropped them to 17-28 and into last place in the division 6 1/2 games off the lead.
"You have to turn the page," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said, "but sometimes that page gets heavy. We've got to get after it. We're not going to be in first place in one day, and we're not going to be in first place after two games. We have to stay after it."
The Dodgers' climb
Meanwhile, the Angels' rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers not of Anaheim, have stormed back into the National League West Division race.
They stumbled into May fresh from an "impossible" loss April 30 to San Diego in which they led, 5-0, in the ninth inning. The hangover from that defeat lasted until May 5. That night they began a surge of 15 wins in 18 games that carried them within a half-game of first place.
The keys to the hot streak?
"We're not making stupid mistakes on defense and the pitchers aren't making stupid pitches," starter Brad Penny said. "Those are the keys."
Marlins don't understand
The Florida Marlins gained some much-needed self-respect by sweeping three games from the downtrodden Chicago Cubs last week. First-year manager Joe Girardi, however, is still frustrated by his young -- and occasionally wild -- pitching staff.
"Same stuff, different day," Girardi told the Miami Herald recently. "It's one thing maybe to miss location once in a while. But you can't walk people and you can't hit people when you're ahead in the count.
"You've got to understand the game. That's the biggest thing we're fighting right now. Our guys don't understand the game."
Lefty shortage in North Dakota
Travis Hafner, Cleveland's left-handed hitting designated hitter, is batting .324 against left-handers this season. He has learned to hit left-handers on the job because he didn't have much exposure to them growing up in Jamestown, N.D.
"In North Dakota, we don't have left-handed pitchers," Hafner told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "They don't make them up there."
Rote gets it right
Good news to report from the South Atlantic League. Ryan Rote won.
You might recall last week we mentioned that Rote was 0-8 in his first eight starts for Class A Kannapolis this season. Poor defense by his teammates led to 17 unearned runs in those eight starts.
The Intimidators made just one error Tuesday night, and Rote pitched five solid innings while beating West Virginia, 6-2, for his first victory.
