Virtually everybody who has been on a team has endured a losing streak.

But not many have been on a team that lost 19 in a row.

That is what Bangor resident Matt Stairs recently suffered through with his Kansas City Royals.

The Royals snapped the streak over the weekend against Oakland and have won four of their last five games after beating Boston 7-4 Thursday night.

Stairs said he wouldn’t wish a 19-game losing streak “on my worst enemy. It was bizarre. Name the way you could lose and we did. We lost games every which way. If you look at it, we were 0-19 but we only should have been 2-17 or 3-16. It wasn’t like we played outstanding baseball. We didn’t play great during the whole stretch. In the Boston series [in Boston] we had two five-run leads.”

The Royals actually had 4-0 and 5-0 leads in games in which they wound up losing 6-4 and 11-9.

The St. John, New Brunswick, native said the players remained “upbeat” throughout the streak.

“We came out with a positive attitude every day and we continued to work hard,” said Stairs.

The Royals are 42-83 after Thursday night’s win over the Red Sox and they will play an important role as spoilers in the playoff chase. They will visit New York for a three-game set with the Yankees beginning tonight.

Stairs was injured during Thursday night’s game when he stretched at first base for a line drive in the fourth. The team said he had a hamstring strain and was day-to-day.

The Yankees are chasing the American League Eastern Division-leading Red Sox.

Stairs is looking forward to the challenge over the remainder of the year.

“Our playoffs are right now,” said Stairs. “It’s fun. It’s not hard to get pumped up for these games.”

He came into the season with a career average of .266 to go with 194 homers and 634 RBIs. The lefthanded-hitting first baseman had his best seasons with Oakland in 1998 (.294-26 homers-106 RBIs) and 1999 (.258-38-102).

Stairs entered Thursday’s game hitting .266 with 11 homers and 50 runs batted in this season. He was playing in his 99th game. He has hit over. 300 since the All-Star break.

“I’m having a pretty good year. I’ll take my numbers over 300 at-bats,” said Stairs, who had 308 at-bats entering Thursday’s game.

He said he has tried to hit the ball to the opposite field and up the middle rather than pulling it. He has been pleased with his reduction in strikeouts. He has fanned 53 times. He struck out 92 times in 439 at-bats last season and has had previous seasons in which he has struck out 124, 122 and 93 times.

He said the Royals have some good young talent but they lack experience. He said they have some “real good arms out of the bullpen.”

The 37-year-old Stairs said the teams that emerge from the logjam to make the playoffs will be the ones that “stay healthy the rest of the year.

“There isn’t a dominant team in baseball this year besides the [St. Louis] Cardinals. All the teams in the American League match up very well. Cleveland has a good chance. They’ve been a surprise team. [Manager] Eric Wedge has done a great job with them,” said Stairs.