As salary dumps continued, including Jermaine Dye being traded to the Athletics
for a bucket of rocks and an old beat up suitcase. Beltran and Sweeney tried their
best to make up for the loss by hitting their way into stardom. In 2002, Mike
Sweeney with a phenomenal .340 batting agerage to go along with 31 doubles and
24 HRs. Beltran meanwhile hit .273 with 44 doubles, 29 HRs and 105 RBIs. Raul
Ibanez who was brought in to DH was also great with 37 2Bs, 24 HRs, 103 RBIs
and a .294 batting average. Paul Byrd meanwhile put up the best pitching performance
in years with a 17-11, 3.90 season. Jeff Suppan however lost 16 games to
even that out and the rest of the pitching staff was abysmal putting up a staff
ERA of 5.22. Only 1.3 million came to the stadium all season long. Beltran was
the star of the show in 2003, batting .307 with 26 HRs and 100 RBIs and the Royals
jumped above .500 for the first time in almost a decade, putting up an 83-79
(.512) record. That victory would however be very short lived as the team sunk
to an all-time low of 58-104 (.358) by 2004. Everyone on the team including
Beltran (15 HRs, 51 RBIs, .278) and Sweeney (22 HR, .287) either had an off
year or was injured plagued. Pitcher Darrell May meanwhile lost 19 games tying
Paul Splittorff as the Royals set team records in futility. |