E-Mail This Article to a Friend Baseball’s most disappointing teams BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Back in April, when the 2004 Major League Baseball season unfolded, everybody started at 0-0, everybody’s magic number was the same, and everybody had a shot. Oh sure, the Expos, Brewers, and Devil Rays probably had a pretty good indication that they would not be able to defeat the likes of the nearly $200 million juggernaut that was the you-know-whos, but for at least a week or so, the divisions were up for grabs.

A lot of teams that had dismal 2003s had retooled and entered the season with higher expectations; those that had competed well but fallen short had also made modifications that could perhaps push them over the hump. As for that pair of teams that reached the Fall Classic — well, they didn’t have to do too much, other than maintain the status quo and hope that the baseball gods would again look down fondly on their franchises and fortunes. (Of course — speaking of fortunes — that didn’t stop the Yankees from making some extreme renovations to their AL-pennant-winning squad, but that’s another story.)

But, as is always the case, things didn’t quite turn out as planned for a number of teams. The so-called experts pegged these teams as up-and-comers, but instead they turned in mediocre performances, or perhaps even crashed and burned. Maybe it was injuries, maybe it was poor personnel decisions, maybe it was simply subpar performances. We’re not here to accept their excuses, only to call them out and outline their tales of woe.

Here are their sad sagas.

• Toronto. The Blue Jays won back-to-back world championships in 1992 and 1993, but in the subsequent four seasons the team posted losing records before rebuilding prior to the 1998 season. The Jays were 88-74 that season, but because of a limited payroll hovered around .500 the next four seasons. But last year was to be Toronto’s breakthrough. Even though the team got off to a 10-18 start, it was 48-41 before a midsummer swoon derailed its hopes. Still, the team went 25-12 to finish off the season, and GM JP Ricciardi’s bunch was expected to take it to the next level this season. Instead, the Jays have underachieved dramatically. Heading into the weekend, the team was just 64-88, and had a slim hold on the AL East basement — just a half-game behind perennial divisional cellar-dwellers Tampa Bay, 31.5 games behind the Yankees. Toronto is sub-.500 at home, 26-48 on the road, and 26-40 against its East counterparts. By next season, Toronto will be the sole remaining Canadian team in the majors. It will also likely be without one of its franchise players, Carlos Delgado, who despite a horrible season (at $18.5 million) will likely depart via free agency.

• Tampa Bay. Oh, the D-Rays had their moments, and their 12-game win streak (and 15 of 16) in June was one of MLB’s best stories this summer. By the time the fun had ended, Tampa was 36-35 and just four games behind Boston (and nine behind NY) in the East, and seemed to making good on manager Lou Piniella’s subtle guarantee that the squad wouldn’t finish last. Alas, as of this writing the Rays are 64-87, having gone just 22-46 since July 7, and putting themselves in imminent danger of again bringing up the rear in the division. Piniella’s worked hard, and the team has a bounty of good young players, but a team batting average of .258 and the 22nd-best ERA (of nearly five) has derailed the franchise’s hopes once again.

• Kansas City. Maybe they just were a fluke last year, and manager Tony Peña really was using smoke and mirrors to prod the 2003 squad to a 83-79 third-place finish (just seven back from division-winning Minnesota). The Royals always seem to get stuck with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, and that could explain away the fact that prior to last season, KC hadn’t had a winning season since the strike-shortened season of 1994. Bouncing back so nicely last season from a dismal 61-100 record in 2002 gave Royals rooters hope for this year. But the squad was pretty bad right out of the box, and by Independence Day it was already 20 games below .500 (and superstar Carlos Beltran had been traded to Houston). With 10 games left, the 56-96 Royals appear likely to lose a century’s worth of games for the second time in three seasons, and will continue to be viewed as a minor-league team playing in a major-league environment.

• Seattle. A lot of folks, myself included, speculated that the Mariners were just too damn old to contend for the division — much less the pennant — this season, but they still had in place a number of the same players who had led the franchise to a record 116-win season three years ago. The Mariners had an excellent 2003, and until a four-game sweep in Boston in late August, Seattle had dibs on the inside track to the wild-card spot. The M’s ultimately finished just two games behind the Sox for that playoff slot, but their 93-69 provided solid confidence for this season. So what happened? Never has one team aged so much during one off-season, that’s what, and the Mariners are firmly entrenched in the AL West cellar — a mind-boggling 27 games out of the third-place position and 58-94 overall. The team started out the season 0-5, and a nine-game losing streak in early July dropped them completely out of contention by the All-Star break. Some major retooling in the off-season will be necessary for this proud franchise even to begin to think about competing with the likes of division mates Anaheim, Oakland, and yes, even Texas in the future.

• Florida. Maybe they, like the Royals, were a fluke last season, although this bunch of overachievers actually walked away with a World Series trophy in October. This year, the Marlins are again focused not on division honors, but the wild-card berth — a ticket to the post-season that ultimately propelled the team to last year’s championship. Still, last year’s squad won 91 games; this year the Fish are just six games above .500 (79-73). Furthermore, only 30,000-plus fans — of a team that is supposedly in the heat of a wild-card race — bothered to show up for Thursday’s key home match-up with the Phillies. How on earth can anyone justify this region’s fandom enjoying two world titles in the last seven seasons?

• Philadelphia. Everyone’s fashionable pick for the NL East crown was the Phillies, but despite being 10 games above .500, Larry Bowa’s boys are in third place, 15 games behind the Braves as the season winds down. Tenth in the league in hitting and 13th in pitching, the Phillies in their spankin’-new ballpark are without question one of the season’s biggest disappointments. Where did things go wrong? Pretty much from the outset: the Phillies didn’t get over .500 for the first time until May 9, and as of the beginning of August the team was still only 53-52. A critical 10-game home stand two weeks later was deemed to be the turning point, but the Terry Francona alumni dropped nine out of 10 to Colorado, SF, and Houston, and that was all she wrote. Signing off on Bowa’s termination will likely be the next order of (penmanship) business in the Phillies’ front office.

• NY Mets. I think a lot of folks thought the Mets were due to make drastic improvements from their last-place, 66-95 finish last season. Well, heading into the weekend, the "other" New Yorkers had already posted their 67th victory, so I guess some progress was made. Nonetheless, back on July 21 the 47-47 Mets were just three games out of the NL East lead, and optimism in Queens was running rampant. Sadly, winning only two of their next 10 put a damper on things, as did the 11-game losing streak (amid a 15-of-16 skein of ineptitude) heading into September. The Metropolitans will be lucky to hold off the Expos for basement honors, and have gone just 20-39 since those heady days in July.

• Cincinnati. This is a bit unfair, since no one expected much out of the Redlegs to begin with this season, but as recently as July 20, Cincy was 50-44 and in second place behind the runaway Cardinals in the NL Central. Apparently running on a parallel course with the Mets, though, the Reds have unfortunately gone just 20-38 the rest of the way. They are a startling 30 games behind the Redbirds, and 13.5 games out of even third place.

• Arizona. Curt Schilling (20-6, 3.28 ERA, Cy Young candidate) traded for Casey Fossum (4-14, 6.65) and Brandon Lyon (out for season to this point with elbow injury). That’s about all you need to know about the 2001 world champs’ fall from grace. Still, I don’t think many folks figured the D-Backs to drop from an 84-78 record in 2003 to the bumbling bunch that has thus far gone just 47-106. Look out below! Even the expansion team of 1998 had 65 victories; this one hasn’t been above .500 since its third game of the season. Arizona has the 26th-ranked offense and the 27th-ranked pitching staff (imagine where they’d be without Randy Johnson) in all of baseball, and the prognosis is bleak, to say the least.

Meanwhile, in the Hub of Hardball, where things are playing out pretty much the way people expected, the Yankees are set to all but clinch the AL East for the seventh straight season. For the Red Sox, it’ll be their seventh straight season in that runner-up spot, but they’re still virtually wild-card bound. At least Red Sox fans can rejoice that their lads are not included in the list just completed.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com