Yost Is Toast: Phillies Claim Second Manager of The Season

According to MLB.com, the Brewers fired Ned Yost after the Phillies swept them in a four-game set over the weekend, dropping them into a Wild Card tie with the Fightin' Phils.

Guess the panic button has been officially pressed.  Former Flyers head coach Terry Murray would call this a "choking situation."

At least the Mets decided to shake things up months ago.  When they fired Willie Randolph there was still time to make a course correction.  Despite recent bullpen implosions, New York still sits atop the NL East with a dozen games to play.

This is new to Philadelphia fans.  We're used to chasing OUR coaches out of town; it's actually a bit of a hobby.  Howard Eskin has made quite a career for himself over the years calling for people's heads.  It's quite a new experience to cost other teams' managers their job. 

I guess since with Charlie Manuel getting an extension, we needed to direct that negative vibe somewhere.

Dale Sveum, the interim manager for Milwaukee, was the team's third base coach.  He has twelve games to turn the ship around.

But the thing is - the Brewers are still in the hunt.  If the season ended today, there would be a one-game playoff.  Why such a drastic move?

G.M. Doug Melvin is quoted on MLB.com saying, "The club is just not performing close to the way they performed earlier. We have 12 days left and we don't know what could jump-start the club. This was, I guess, the only thing we thought had a chance of jump-starting the club."

The problem with trying to jump-start your team - if I may continue the analogy - is that if you use too much voltage, you can kill your patient.

Milwaukee fans better hope Melvin didn't just kill their playoff chances.