Royals: What Went Wrong?

I write for RoyalsRevival.com whenever I can. Here's a recent article.
By Joel Reagan
OK, maybe it should be,"What went right?"
The Kansas City Royals took a giant leap backwards in 2004. Who is to blame?
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Tony Pena. Maybe. The always loose, keep a smile on your face philosophy may be a good thought. However, some players respond to that well and some don’t. Maybe without "good" pressure to perform, the Royals didn’t.
Pena told KCRoyals.com,"I try to have fun with my players. Most of the time when you have young players they have a tendency to be too tight. You have to loosen them up. It's tough when you play tight. I try to make sure that when they walk through the clubhouse door they feel they can be comfortable."
I’ve never been a major league manager, but maybe they shouldn’t be comfortable being 29 ½ games out of first place.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but these are the kind of things a fan thinks about after a collapse of this magnitude.
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The pitching. Maybe. It’s hard to be happy with a squad whose ace is 9-16 with a 5.61 ERA. The youth and inexperience of this staff was a question mark on day one. Opening day starter Brian Anderson started out 1-9.
"It stinks, it's brutal. I've never been a part of anything like this. You can talk about how bad it's been, but you've got to go back to the beginning and I'm a big part of why it's been so bad," Anderson told KCRoyals.com. Injuries also sent Royals pitchers to the DL in droves.
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The offense. Once again, injuries have hurt KC. Mike Sweeney’s back forced him out of the lineup in August. His 22 homers were nice, but none of the current Royals have hit over .300. Juan Gonzalez’ own back problems ended his season early. Carlos Beltran was dealt away.
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OK, maybe injuries were the culprit.
"You cannot use that as an excuse because everybody has injuries but the problem with a market our size is that you don't have depth and injuries are much more traumatic for a small-market team than they are for a big-market team where if they lose somebody, they can go out and get somebody else that's about as good," Royals owner David Glass told KCRoyals.com.
There’s the dreaded "small-market" quote. For too long, small-market teams and their fans have complained about the way baseball runs. Unfortunately, we have to learn how to play the game.
Glass has invested in depth for Kansas City, hiring former Anaheim exec Donny Rowland as the senior director-player personnel to help the farm system build prospects and team depth.
Rowland is credited with expanding the Angels outreach internationally, expanding scouting operations in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Curacao, Aruba, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Australia.
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Back in April, I wrote: "This team has taken another step."
I was right. I just thought they were walking in a different direction.
They probably still are going in the right direction. It’s just not going to be as easy as we thought it was. Plus, there’s no guarantee they can succeed.
It will take more than inspiring "Natural-like" moments to excite fans and put bigger numbers in the win column. It will take strategy, skill and hard work to get it done.
The Royals need to put their belief into action.

Joel Reagan works in Oklahoma City radio, but runs up to KC to see the Royals as much as he can. You can reach him at joel@joelreagan.com.