Despite rumors to the contrary, manager Ned Yost kept his job in late May after the Milwaukee Brewers were swept in Boston to fall four games below .500.

The Brewers responded by winning 12 of their next 16 games to climb back into contention.

There were no such rumors this time, just a swift and sudden decision to fire Yost Monday after the Brewers lost four straight in Philadelphia to fall into a tie with the Phillies in the National League wild card race.

We'll never know if the Brewers would have responded positively to hitting rock bottom this time because the powers-that-be in the franchise — and this decision has owner Mark Attanasio's fingerprints all over it — couldn't afford to wait and see if history would repeat itself.

With only 12 games left and the wild card playoff berth still out there to be won or lost, firing Yost was a move the Brewers simply had to make if they wanted to have any chance to save the season.

Even a relative baseball novice like Attanasio knows that changing managers on a contending team with two weeks left in the season isn't standard procedure.

However, these aren't normal times in Milwaukee.

Attanasio went all-in when he traded a sizable chunk of the team's future for pitcher CC Sabathia in early July. The firing of Yost was merely a continuation of the now-or-never approach adopted by Attanasio the minute he OK'd the Sabathia deal.

Canning the manager with the finish line in sight smacks of desperation, but the Brewers are feeling a sense of urgency, and rightfully so. With Sabathia and longtime ace Ben Sheets likely to be lost in free agency, they probably have a one-year window to break their 26-year playoff drought.

Although the Brewers have gone 3-11 in September and blown a 5?-game lead over the Phillies in the wild card race, it's possible that they could have rebounded in the next two weeks and made the playoffs under Yost.

However, that was a risk the Brewers couldn't take. They couldn't wait to see if Yost's patient approach would snap the Brewers out of their funk in time to salvage a playoff berth. With time so short, something was needed to shake up the team and Yost was unwilling or unable to do that.

The Brewers stopped hitting when September arrived and Yost's approach was to back off and patiently wait for the hitters to snap out of it rather than do anything proactive.

He could have yelled at players, benched starters, applied pressure through his comments in the media or created a distraction to take the spotlight off of the players.

Instead, Yost did nothing.

Just last week, he was asked to compare his philosophy to that of volatile Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who recently blasted his team to reporters within earshot of the players when they weren't hitting.

"I've got my own style and the way that I like to do things," Yost said. "I think everybody wants to just vent and scream and yell, but I just think that it's more productive for me and my players if we take a calmer approach. I've got young players, he's got veteran guys.

"Lou's done that forever. We all hate to lose. This is no fun for any of us, going through this. But my mind-set and my thought process is, the more steady and even-keeled we can stay, the quicker we'll get out of it. I don't want my kids pressing or stressing because I'm screaming and yelling at 'em. They've got enough of that coming from the radio shows and the fans and their moms and dads."

That calm, even-keeled approach is fine — in May or June. After all, baseball is a marathon and players and teams are prone to occasional slumps.

But with two weeks left in the season, the Brewers couldn't afford to wait any longer. They needed to shake things up in an attempt to end their hitting slump. And if Yost wouldn't do it, they needed to find someone who would.

Some will call this a knee-jerk reaction by some George Steinbrenner-wannabe who overruled his baseball savvy general manager. But heading into a series with the Central Division-leading Cubs starting tonight and with the wild card still within reach, something had to be done.

After all, there is no next year for these Brewers.