And so, on day one of the rest of their lives, the Milwaukee Brewers did what they’d been doing all month.  They lost.

It’s a dangerous time when the owner starts making personnel moves himself, and by all indications Brewers’ General Manager Doug Melvin didn’t see any point in replacing Dumb (Ned Yost) with Dumber (Dale Sveum).  But his boss demanded he “Do something!” and while it’s mostly nothing, I guess it’s technically something.

If the move had been made three months ago, like when the Brewers got swept in Boston (they’re good at being swept by good teams, so far the Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies and Mets have all done it to them) and a good manager had been brought in, well now that would have really been something.  That would have helped.

This?  This is just amusing.

Grasping for straws, the media tried to figure out what the final straw was that got Ned booted.  They surmised it happened in the four games they just dumped in Philadelphia.  In the first game of a doubleheader on Sunday, the Brewers had a 3-1 lead.  Hey, a lead!  Wow!  That went away.

Then, with the game tied at three in the eighth, Jayson Werth (who really is Corey Hart with a full-sized face) led off with a single.  Ned had his gutty little lefty Brian Shouse in.  Shouse is murder on lefties (just ask Kosuke) he’s not so much on righties (just ask Hank White).

Chase Utley bunted Werth to second.  Ned decided not to have Shouse pitch to Ryan Howard (who, despite being Kosuke-bad against lefties is the hottest hitter on the planet right now), so he walked him.  Coming up next?  Righty Pat Burrell and then switch hitter Shane Victorino.

Ned had a righty warming up in the bullpen.  Only the righty was Eric Gagne.  That’s quite a choice.  Do I leave in the lefty who can’t get righties out, or do I go to the bullpen to the righthander who can’t get anybody out?  

Ned stuck with Shouse.  Burrell singled to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead.  Ned still stuck with Shouse, and Victorino homered to give the Phillies a 7-3 lead, the game was over, and Ned’s job was hanging like Felix Pie’s pre-op huevos.

When the Phillies-Brewers Friday night game was rained out, the Phillies proposed making it up as a day game on Monday, a mutual off day for the two teams.  The Phillies weren’t totally being benevolent.  Because their fifth starters have sucked ass all year, they were already starting 76 year old former Cub Jamie Moyer on short rest on Saturday, if they could avoid a Sunday doubleheader they could bring wife-punching Brett Myers back on full rest Monday and get their rotation back in order.

The Brewers got to vote on it as a team because taking away that off day would mean they were playing the last 24 games of the season without a day off, more than the collective bargaining agreement allows without player permission.

They voted to play the doubleheader.  Had they played the game Monday, they could have started CC Sabathia against Myers on full rest.  Instead, either CC pitched one of the Sunday games on three days’ rest, or the fabulous duo of Dave Bush and Jeff Suppan started the games.

Bush and Suppan started the games, and Milwaukee lost both of them.

Ned’s unwillingness to start his very rich rental half-ton pitcher angered his owner.

But how dumb was it, really?  Sure, they needed to beat the Phillies on Sunday, but they also needed to beat the Cubs on Tuesday.  Moving CC up two days wasn’t going to squeeze an extra start out of him before the end of the season, so you’d basically be making it less likely he’d win his last three starts instead of more likely, and for no real purpose.

As it was, CC lost to the Cubs last night anyway.  The Brewers have not lost to any team in the NL when CC starts, except for the Cubs…twice.  Suck on that.

Whatever the reason for the Brewers firing of Ned, whether it was the 3-11 September record, the Phillies sweep, the unwillingness to start CC on short rest, they did it.  

Will it make the Brewers worse?  No.  The same problems exist, their bullpen sucks, their offense has way too many holes in it (Mike Cameron is not a lead off hitter, Rickie Weeks isn’t either, Craig Counsell sucks, Bill Hall can’t hit righties, Jason Kendall’s bat has anemia, Corey Hart packed it in a month ago), Manny Parra, Suppan and Bush are mediocre at best.  Ned wasn’t a particularly good manager, and he seemed to constantly be fighting the wrong battles (being baited into a beanball war with the Cardinals, fighting with Johnny Estrada, sending DVDs of a controversial hit to the commissioner), but Dale Sveum seems like a Bruce Kimm-level doofus.  

True to form, what was Sveum’s first act of business?  He announced that he was dropping Parra from the rotation and would be starting Dave Bush on three days’ rest against the Cubs Thursday.  Look, there’s some sense in starting a really good pitcher on short rest, but why would you start Dave Bush, who is not a good pitcher, on short rest, against the Cubs who hammer him every time he pitches against them?  Because it’s doing SOMEthing, and that’s the only real message their owner sent here.  Do something, even if it makes no sense, because…oh, who the fuck knows?

It was good to see the Cubs put another hurting on CC last night, if only to shut up those dopes who think that he should win the Cy Young for the National League.  He’s been excellent, there’s no disputing that, even if he’s really pitched two games the Brewers HAD to win, and both times the Cubs beat the Brewers in those games.  But the folly of it was that analysts keep pointing to the fact that the Brewers had only lost once before last night when he pitched.

That’s great.  Of course, the Astros had only lost once before Sunday when Randy Wolf pitched.  They were 8-1, nobody was touting Randy Wolf as a Cy Young candidate.

It’s very likely that Lou Piniella’s tame (for him) tirade after the Tuesday night loss in St. Louis had no effect on the players.  Ted Lilly ran over Yadier Molina the next night, and when the writers asked him if Lou had fired him up, Ted said, “Huh?”

Whatever, since that night, the Cubs have looked like the team we’ve enjoyed so much all summer.  Solid defense, big hits and really, really good starting pitching.  We tried to tell you during the dismal stretch to start September that they’d get it back together, but I can’t blame you for worrying a little.  

The fact is, the Cubs will wrap things up on the homestand.  If Jason Marquis can somehow beat Ben Sheets tonight…guh…OK, if the Cubs can come back from the deficit Marquis leaves them, they could clinch the division tomorrow.  That would be ideal, of course, because a) we all want it over with and b) it would happen at home.

But what if the Brewers leave with the magic number at two.  The Cubs play a 1:20 pm game against the Cardinals on Friday, the Brewers don’t play until six in Cincinnati.  Say the Cubs win Friday and the magic number goes to one.  They’re not going to be around to celebrate in the clubhouse if the Brewers lose to the Reds that night.

So what do you do?  You celebrate after Saturday’s game, is what you do.  Teams have clinched on off days before, most recently (I’m doing this from memory which is always bad) the Angels clinched the division when nobody was the park, and they just loaded up the clubhouse with champagne during their next game and partied win or lose.  You work all season for a division title, you deserve to celebrate it, even if it is just the first step.  If you go where you’re supposed to there will be more raucous on-field celebrations to enjoy, but you can’t begrudge them this one.

In a way, they experienced it on Sunday in Milwaukee when Carlos completed his no-hitter and the team spilled out of the dugout and onto the field and into that big jumping clump of sweaty men that somehow, fittingly, ended up on the pitcher’s mound.

Obviously it doesn’t really matter where the Cubs are when they wrap it up, certainly not enough to spend any time worrying about it.  There are bigger things to plan for and worry about.

And that’s pretty cool.