Longest-suffering MLB team crumbling again

Steve Wieberg | Special for USA TODAY Sports

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- Since he broke into the big leagues in 2007, Billy Butler has piled up more hits than Josh Hamilton. He has driven in more runs than another All-Star contemporary, Joey Votto. He has posted a higher batting average than Jacoby Ellsbury.

It's what Butler hasn't done — and the others have — that eats at the Kansas City Royals designated hitter.

"Where I'm at in my career … I'm saying, 'Am I ever going to get to the playoffs?'" he says, his voice almost plaintive. "'Am I ever going to be on a team like that?'

"I don't want to go somewhere else and do it there. I want to achieve it here. It's been so long. There are so many people putting in a lot of effort. I think everybody sees that the organization is pushing, doing the right things to get to that point."

So when is the payoff?

The question hangs over a club brimming with young talent but mired all too familiarly in a most-of-May funk as it enters the final two games of a four-day, home-and-home series against the St. Louis Cardinals today and Thursday. Butler and the Royals looked every bit the ascending team May 5, when they sat a half-game out of first place in the American League Central Division. Then, most everybody but left fielder Alex Gordon stopped hitting. The defense had some hiccups.

A newly strengthened pitching staff was good, but the losses nonetheless mounted: 17 in 21 games, eight of them by one run. Going into Tuesday's game vs. St. Louis, the Royals — once 17-10 — were six games below .500 and 7½ games behind the Central-leading Detroit Tigers.

Seven years into a meticulous and mostly lauded overhaul of the organization by general manager Dayton Moore, it remains a work in progress. The two most notable products of a once-well-stocked farm system, first baseman Eric Hosmer and third baseman Mike Moustakas, are anchored in the everyday lineup and assumed to be part of the solution. At the moment, however, they're a conspicuous part of the problem.

***

Struggles on offense

Moustakas was hitting .178, close to the lowest average for any full-time position player in the American League. Hosmer, 6-4, 220 pounds, has an acceptable .268 average but one home run and nine extra-base hits.

Even Butler, a career .298 hitter coming off his first All-Star selection a year ago, has scuffled.

"Offensively, we have a ton of talent that's untapped right now," he says.

The optimistic perspective is that it's mere growing pains. Hosmer is 23, Moustakas 24, and both former top-three draft picks are barely a quarter of the way through their second full seasons. Center fielder Lorenzo Cain is in his first. Alcides Escobar, a hidden gem acquired with Cain in the December 2010 trade of pitcher Zack Greinke to the Milwaukee Brewers, is 26 and maturing at shortstop.

Moore and manager Ned Yost preach patience. "Before, when we struggled — and we've been through these types of periods — it was much bleaker because you didn't trust the talent on the field," Moore says. "I trust this talent."

Says Yost: "There's no consolation for anybody to say, 'We're competing.' But we're competing. We're in every single game.

"Right now, we've just got to continue to wait it out. And work it out."

Tugging in the other direction is some of the most painful recent history in professional sports.

***

28 years of futility

It has been almost 28 years since Darryl Motley squeezed the final fly-ball out of the 1985 season, securing a seventh-game win against the Cardinals in what remains the Royals' last World Series and last postseason appearance, period. Only once since the strike-shortened summer of 1994 have they managed so much as a winning record, finishing an average of almost 25 games out of first in their division and never higher than third.

The Royals' average record over the last nine seasons: 66-96.

As for the franchise that operates 250 miles across the state … well, Moore insists, "You've got to be completely consumed and focused on what you do. You can't concern yourself with other people and organizations."

Monday's series-opening win improved St. Louis' interleague record against the Royals to 43-30. Little less galling was the crowd of almost 35,000, tinged red as usual by the legions of Cardinals fans who claimed Kauffman Stadium for themselves as they reveled in the club with the best record in the majors.

There's little dispute that, top to bottom, the Royals are in better shape than they were when Moore arrived May 30, 2006. He built what widely became regarded as baseball's best farm system, owed in part to a succession of top-of-the-draft picks that came with Kansas City's won-lost records. He upgraded scouting and development in Latin America.

The Royals will never shed their small-market financial constraints, but owner David Glass more than doubled the opening-day payroll in two years to $79.5 million this season. Not New York Yankees money. But it's no longer the lowest in baseball.

It reflects the bold move Moore made in December, shipping some of his best minor league talent — including top prospect Wil Myers — to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for a top-of-the-rotation pitcher in James Shields and a second starter, Wade Davis. Moore invested a new three-year contract in right-hander Jeremy Guthrie and acquired Ervin Santana for a year, shoring up a staff that too long had been a liability.

The early return is a starters' ERA of 4.06, down almost a full run from last season's 5.01. Shields, with nine quality starts and a 2.96 ERA, has been "everything that I thought he would be, hoped he would be," Yost says.

And yet the right-hander is 2-6, beaten up some by the Cardinals on Monday but mostly a victim of Kansas City's lack of offense.

"We understand the offense is struggling," Butler says. "And we understand that at some point in the future we're going to have to pick up the pitching staff. We're going to have to outscore a team."

On the whole, the Royals don't hit for power. Backup infielder Miguel Tejada, who turned 39 last weekend, has the only two home runs in their last 12 games, and seven AL teams have more than doubled their season total of 28.

Moustakas epitomizes the woes, with more strikeouts (12) than hits (11) in May and a season-long .091 batting average with runners in scoring position. Only two starting position players in the AL have a lower overall average.

He has remained outwardly unflustered, recalling a 1-for-42 slump he once endured in the minors. "I just trusted my abilities," Moustakas says. "I mean, I know I'm a good baseball player. I know I can hit. At some point, it'll all work out."

Absent that confidence, Yost says, Moustakas would be working things out with their Class AAA club in Omaha. Says Moore, "Mike Moustakas has to face major league pitching to begin to develop a database, to have a history (of facing) major league pitchers."

***

Patience is a virtue

Moore maintains faith in Moustakas, Hosmer and the bulk of his struggling lineup, and at least one rival advises not to treat him like the bandleader on the Titanic.

"The one thing people often don't realize is that the development of young players is not linear. It's a jagged edge," says Mark Shapiro, who spent nine successful years as the Cleveland Indians general manager and now serves as team president. "What you hope is that, over time, the overall line is a progression. But the greatest young players still go through ups and downs. That's part of the process of transitioning into a big-league player."

He likes Moore's work. "There's a clearly articulated vision of what he's trying to build and a consistent theme of talent and values that runs through all the decisions he's made," Shapiro says. "Along the way, as difficult as it can be sometimes to not make short-term decisions, he's stayed steadfast in that strategy and continued to execute that plan.

"In the end, the payoff is that he's building something with a much stronger foundation."

But the Royals' clock is ticking. Moore will soon be playing the roster-control game.

Shields, an anchor on the mound and in the locker room, is under contract through next season and figures to become a big-ticket free agent. Hosmer could qualify for salary arbitration this year, and both he and Moustakas will be eligible after the 2014 season.

Butler's contract, including a team option, runs out the following year, Gordon's the year after that.

"If we win, guys like me and James are going to have the ability to stay here. They aren't going to let us go," Butler says.

If they don't win? It has been a difficult three weeks, and a season of promise is teetering.