KANSAS CITY -- The Athletics are ready to return home.

After scoring more than four runs just once during a 1-9 road trip to Seattle, Houston and Kansas City, the A’s head back to Oakland 11 games under .500 just 15 days after reaching even against Miami.

An 8-4 loss to the Royals on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium marked the A’s eighth straight loss, and the end of a trip they’re ready to forget.

“I think when things start to not go your way, the way baseball works is that it just snowballs and you try to do too much, and it ends up having the opposite effect of what you want it to,” said outfielder Brent Rooker, who clobbered a three-run homer in the ninth. “Then it just snowballs and snowballs until eventually you come out of it.

“It’s a game of streaks, and right now we are in a not-so-fun streak, but with the group we have in here, we know we are going to come out of it, start playing better and get back to winning baseball games.”

The formula for winning those games is still there. Rooker, who hit his team-leading 11th homer, paces an Oakland club that is tied for fourth in the Major Leagues in home runs. But despite hitting multi-run homers in all three games against Kansas City, the A’s couldn’t put more than four runs on the board even with back-to-back games with 11 hits. They finished the series going 3-for-16 (.188) with runners in scoring position.

“That’s one thing we’ve done well this year -- we’ve hit the ball with power,” Rooker said. “Obviously we have to do a better job scoring in situations to keep ourselves close in games so things like that [home run in the ninth] can happen and we can take a lead or tie up, but we are just going to keep working.”

The A’s have been out of games early because of the injury-riddled starting rotation. Kansas City scored in the first inning of every game this series, and no Oakland starter was able to get an out past the fifth inning. In fact, 12 of the past 15 A’s starters have gone five innings or fewer.

“You hit stretches like this,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “You hit some adversity with some injuries, but you just have to keep focusing on grinding out and focusing on that day. Obviously tomorrow is a good day to take a breather and reset.

“We’ve pitched better than we have over [this] series, sometimes we get in these ruts where you start hitting and don’t pitch, and vice versa, so I think the off-day couldn’t come at a better time for us right now.”

When the A’s last had an off-day on May 8, one day before the road trip, the club was just four games out of first place and held a 4 1/2-game lead over the Astros for third. Now, on May 19, the A’s are tied with the Angels for last place in the AL West and sit seven games out of first.

JP Sears, who was unable to get out of the fifth inning and allowed four runs over 4 1/3 frames, wanted to be the starter to put the A’s back on track, but he struggled with command and left with 65 pitches.

“It was a little letdown because of the stretch we are going through,” Sears said. “I wanted to be the guy to pick the team up, but today just wasn’t the day for that.

“It’s a long season. We obviously have not been playing good baseball the past 10 days or so, so we are going to enjoy the off-day tomorrow. And we’ve been playing pretty well at home as of recently, so it will be good to get back home and regroup.”

One positive was the sight of Mason Miller, who pitched for just the fourth time in May. He tossed a scoreless frame on seven pitches, improving his scoreless streak to 18 1/3 innings.

But the A’s want to see him close games, not pitch to get work in during a seven-run game in the eighth. The hope is that back at the Oakland Coliseum on Tuesday, the Athletics can once again give their closer a chance to do what he does best.

“It’s a long season and we know that we are young, we are really good and there are a lot of good players on this team that can do a lot to help us,” Sears said. “We are just going to stay positive and keep grinding.”