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Royals aren’t the first team to suffer through growing pains with the offense
By SAM MELLINGERThe Kansas City Star
Jack McKeon once managed a team that, to be perfectly honest, stunk offensively. This team finished dead last in runs, on-base percentage, batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage, so they couldn’t score, couldn’t get on base, couldn’t hit and couldn’t hit for power.
This team also had pretty good pitching, especially young pitching, and finished in the top half of the league in ERA with four-fifths of the rotation in their 20s.
Um, Royals fans, any of this sounding familiar?
“We were very similar to your club in Kansas City there,” says McKeon, who managed the 1978 A’s. “We had a lot of young guys who were on the verge of being really good and they were in a learning process. And we didn’t have much of an offense.”
The Royals are, of course, on pace to rank as one of the worst offenses of the American League since the Royals became a franchise. And though the pitching staff is ninth in the AL in runs scored, it is still the strength and how the team is designed to win games despite a substandard offense.
Going into Wednesday’s game against the Tigers, the Royals averaged 3.58 runs per game, which was just 77.8 percent of the AL average.
Research by The Star’s Brad Doolittle shows that would put the Royals among the worst 10 offenses in the AL since 1969. They’d rank as the seventh worst, between the 1983 Mariners (76.9 percent) and McKeon’s ’78 A’s (77.9 percent).
The ’83 Mariners and ’78 A’s teams are notable at the moment in Kansas City not just for the anemic offense, but for their relatively good pitching. That Mariners ranked last in the same team offensive categories as the A’s and also finished last in runs, hits, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. And they had a pitching staff (seventh in ERA) that deserved better.
The experiences of the ’78 A’s and ’83 Mariners might provide a window to what the Royals are going through this year, and perhaps some tricks they might use to compensate.
“It gets frustrating, that’s a good word,” says Rick Sweet, the catcher for the ’83 Mariners. “But you talk to athletes, they always feel like they can do something. Sac bunt, hit and run, go out and work hard, hit early, get better. We had early batting practice all the time.”
Outside of trades or acquisitions — is Barry Bonds still available? — there isn’t a whole lot that McKeon or Sweet said a struggling offensive team can do.
Extra BP or extra tape study can do only so much. Big-league ballplayers can work out flaws but aren’t likely to get significantly better in a short period of time just by taking a few extra swings.
Steve Renko, a Kansas City native who pitched for the ’78 A’s, also spoke for this story. And among Renko, McKeon and Sweet, nobody — even 25 and 30 years removed — would admit to any sort of negative feelings between the productive pitchers and scuffling hitters.
“Not at all,” Renko says. “We were a young ballclub, and we had a lot of fun. As I remember, that was probably the most relaxed season I played in 15 years.”
The ’83 Mariners struggled from the start, finding themselves 8-16 at the end of April and 30-51 at the All-Star break. The nucleus of that team was dismantled, and it was 12 years before the Mariners made the playoffs.
The ’78 A’s were in first place as late as July 5, and above .500 as late as Aug. 14 before finishing 69-93 and 23 games out of first place.
That team had some unique issues, mostly involving owner Charlie Finley, who was known for calling in pinch runners in the middle of games. McKeon remembered answering the phone during one game and listening to Finley tell the players to choke up. McKeon told Finley the players were choking up.
“Damn it,” Finley responded, “I’m watching it on TV!”
Hard to imagine David Glass dialing up manager Trey Hillman in the middle of the game and dictating substitutions, but there is one similarity the Royals would like to have with McKeon’s A’s team.
They won 83 games two years later and then the division title in the strike-shortened 1981 season.
The division champion was a much different team but did include core guys from 1978 — like their best three starting pitchers and regular third baseman.
“We suffered with those growing pains, just like you guys are doing in Kansas City,” McKeon says. “Sometimes you have to say, ‘This is what I’ve got, we need to give them a little more time to adjust to the league.’
“You have to understand some are going to come through, and some are going to fall through the cracks.”