Monday's Bunts and Boots--Canning Yost, Clubbing Cano, and Cubs No-Hitters

Is a young George Steinbrenner running the Brewers? Or, if you'll give forgive me for a hockey reference, maybe an old Phil Esposito? That's my immediate reaction to Monday's stunning news that the Brew Crew have fired manager Ned Yost, replacing him with bench coach Dale Sveum. In fairness to Steinbrenner, this is almost an unprecedented move by the Brewers, firing the manager while the team is in the middle of a playoff race in September. Generally, Steinbrenner reserved most of his firings for June, July, and August--and not in the middle of the final month of the regular season. Precedents be damned, Brewers GM Doug Melvin decided that a change was in order after watching his team get swept four straight games over the weekend by the Phillies. Melvin has been intensely loyal to Yost for most of the last two years, resisting calls for his firing by many fans who have become dissatisfied with the team's underachieving ways. But even Melvin realized that the Brewers were not playing up to snuff and were simply not responding to Yost's nice-guy ways.

Melvin has set himself up for a major second guess here, but I applaud him for firing Yost, who has clearly been overmatched as a manager and simply doesn't have enough of a mean streak or strategical acumen to thrive at the major league level. As for the hiring of Sveum, that may be another story entirely. Prior to being a bench coach, Sveum had been targeted by some Brewer observers as a poor third base coach with a history of making questionable decisions for his baserunners. That doesn't necessarily mean that he will be a poor manager, but it does make one wonder. More pertinent is whether Sveum will avoid being the kind of enabler that Yost was to his players, constantly glossing over mistakes and making excuses for fundamental errors. If Sveum is cut from that same too-forgiving cloth, the Brewers may be doomed to an also-ran finish in the wild card race. If Sveum is willing to bring some fire and brimstone to the Brewers, perhaps Milwaukee's talent will win out; after all, they're the most talented team among the wild card contenders, better than Philadelphia, Houston, and possible even the Mets. We'll see...

Speaking of managers who act as enablers to players, Joe Girardi finally took off the rose-colored glasses that he had been using on Robinson Cano all season and benched the enigmatic second baseman for lackadaisical play on Sunday afternoon. After watching Cano lollygag after a ground ball that had eluded Jason Giambi, a play that resulted in two bases for the Rays, Girardi removed Cano from the game. Not satisfied that his message had been completely received, Girardi also benched Cano prior to Monday night's game against the White Sox. Frankly, it's about time. Cano's lackadaisical efforts in the field, his mindless first-pitch swinging at the plate, and general cluelessness with regard to fundamentals have gone unpunished all summer long. He's been one of the biggest culprits in New York's season of underperformance. If a mid-game removal and a subsequent sitdown aren't enough to motivate the listless second baseman, the Yankees may have to consider the option of signing someone like Orlando Hudson as a free agent and trading Cano for the best available package this off season...

It's hard to believe that 36 years had elapsed since a Cubs pitcher last threw a no-hit game. Carlos Zambrano ended the drought on Sunday when he silenced the Astros, though he had to do it in front of a neutral site crowd of fewer than 25,000 fans at Miller Park, which hosted the game because of the devastating presence of Hurricane Ike in the state of Texas. The last Cubs pitcher to throw a no-hitter was blast-from-the-past Milt "Gimpy" Pappas, at the time an aging but effective right-hander. Pappas accomplished the feat against the Padres on September 2, 1972, almost exactly one year before he would retire at the tender age of 34. This was the same game in which Pappas actually came within one batter of pitching a perfect game. With two outs and no one on in the ninth inning at Wrigley Field, Pappas issued a controversial walk on a disputed 3-2 pitch. To this day, Pappas has contended that home plate umpire Bruce Froemming blew the call; the two have carried on a feud ever since. Bad call or not, Pappas did recover to finish off the no-hitter, an accomplishment that Zambrano finally matched on Sunday.