<table> </table> It&#8217;s September and, once again, the Royals are light-years from playing meaningful games. So what now?</p><p>General manager Dayton Moore is as mad as anyone. That was evident last weekend as he sat in the dugout at Comerica Park in Detroit, lips drawn tight, while watching his club work its way through batting practice.</p><p>Moore is vowing major roster changes before the club gathers next February for spring training in Surprise, Ariz.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve made up my mind on this team,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got a pretty good idea on where we need to go and what we need to do. I&#8217;ve been watching this team for two years now. It&#8217;s the same (core) group of guys.&#8221;</p><p>In short, Moore has seen enough. The current mix of players isn&#8217;t working. His solution is to make another major push this winter in the free-agent market while escalating efforts to revamp the roster through trades.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not saying anything that people don&#8217;t know,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;Anybody who puts on a uniform or anyone who follows this team every day or makes decisions about player personnel &#8212; we have to get better.</p><p>&#8220;Ultimately, it&#8217;s my responsibility to put the best team we can on the field. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to do.&#8221;</p><p>Royals fans heard similar words from Moore&#8217;s predecessors, Allard Baird and Herk Robinson, repeatedly for nearly a generation. Promises and pleas for patience.</p><p>It&#8217;s a harder sell this time because the Royals, with a club-record payroll, were expected to show improvement &#8212; at least modestly &#8212; from last year&#8217;s 93-loss team.</p><p>Instead, Labor Day finds them plummeting toward a fifth straight last-place finish in the American League Central. The Royals are 57-79 as they open a three-game series tonight against Oakland at Kauffman Stadium.</p><p>They have lost 12 of their last 14 and 19 of their last 23. They are three losses away from clinching a 13th losing season since 1995. They must win 16 of their remaining 26 games just to avoid losing 90 games for the eighth time in nine years.</p><p>They are an absolute mess with no apparent strength.</p><p>The Royals rank 13th among the 14 AL teams in runs and on-base percentage; and last in homers and walks. They rank 12th in ERA. Five AL teams have made more errors, but the Royals are charging toward the bottom with 24 in their last 23 games.</p><p>&#8220;There have been times, there have been games, when it&#8217;s been very frustrating,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;But I&#8217;m not going to make excuses for anything that we do. I&#8217;m not going to say, &#8216;Well, they&#8217;re young. They&#8217;re just inexperienced.&#8217; I&#8217;m not making any excuses.&#8221;</p><p>Catcher Miguel Olivo&#8217;s outburst last week hints at a disconnect between the players and first-year manager Trey Hillman. Grumbles are common in every clubhouse, especially when the rot of losing sets in, but increasingly sloppy play and lack of focus demand accountability.</p><p>It is here that Moore makes his stand. Ask whether Hillman is the right guy to lead the Royals back to respectability, and the answer is sharp and immediate.</p><p>&#8220;No question,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t think of a better person who would have been &#8212; and remains &#8212; as committed to what we&#8217;re trying to do here. He has sold out on what we&#8217;re trying to do here.&#8221;</p><p>That suggests the only way that Hillman doesn&#8217;t return for the second season of his three-year contract is if Moore is ordered to make a change. That isn&#8217;t likely given the promise of autonomy Moore received from the Glass family when hired in May 2006.