“This is all my fault,” he said. “I really showed up this season completely out of shape. It took me a while to get to where I needed to be. I showed up at spring training at 235 (pounds). I know better than that.”
Guillen has since trimmed his weight to 210 and, no surprise, is beginning to deliver the sort of production the Royals envisioned last winter when they signed him as a free agent for $36 million over three years.
“I can tell you I feel more comfortable,” he said, “and it shows at the plate. That’s a big difference. I was just not ready coming into spring training.”
Guillen has 16 hits in his last 30 at-bats after going three for four in Friday’s 7-6 victory over the Marlins. That eight-game surge includes seven doubles, one homer and nine RBIs. His average, which stood at .165 on May 6, is now up to a season-high .238.
“He’s doing a great job of being accountable,” manager Trey Hillman said. “For me, there’s no sense in going backward. Let’s just go forward.”
Guillen offers no excuses for his poor off-season conditioning. Ask him how he allowed it to happen, and he shakes his head.
“I know, I know, I know,” he said. “I’ve just got to take more responsibility to come in next year in better shape. I’ve got to take care of myself better in the off-season.
“This can not keep happening. It was the same way in Seattle last year. I showed up way out of shape, and I struggled the first month of the season.”
Guillen batted just .239 last season in April with two homers and five RBIs in 19 games. He finished at .290 with 23 homers and 99 RBIs.
Some of the problem, no doubt, is age. Guillen turns 32 today and in his 12th big-league season. His conditioning, he acknowledges, now requires greater attention than in the past. Also, he suggested he succumbed somewhat to enjoying his growing wealth.
“When you have a family and stuff,” he said, “and you’re always traveling and doing a lot of stuff, it’s hard to find time to do the stuff you need to do. But trust me, it’s in my mind now. This can’t happen anymore.
“I don’t want to keep going through this every year. I don’t like what I’m seeing in the first month. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Guillen’s recent surge, ironically, comes as he battles through a sore neck and a sore hip. He spent the last five games as a designated hitter.
The games at Florida are being played under National League rules, which don’t allow for a designated hitter.
His status is likely to be a game-time decision each day. He played seven innings Friday in left field before departing for a defensive replacement.
“He’s giving us everything he can give us,’” Hillman said.
“We’ll see how he feels (tonight).”
Guillen contends it was his conditioning — and not concerns over a possible suspension for alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs — that affected his performance through spring training and into the season’s early weeks.
His performance appears to support that. Commissioner Bud Selig rescinded Guillen’s 15-day suspension in mid-April as a concession to the players’ union in return for agreement on a tougher drug-testing program.
But Guillen continued to struggle.
“When you show up out of shape,” he said, “it’s hard. And when I got (to spring training), I kept trying to lose weight. And when you try to lose weight so fast, your body can not adjust that quickly to the stuff you need to do.”
Throughout his slump, Guillen repeatedly assured doubters, “There’s nothing to worry about with me. I’ll be fine.”
He said that again as recently as this week but now acknowledges it was his way of promising future production once he got his weight under control.
“It’s been really my fault, for all of these problems,” he said. “I was so out of shape. I was trying to play at 230 and 225, and that’s not my normal weight. My normal weight is 210 to 215. That’s a huge difference for me.”
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