There isn’t a precedent for a major league team canning its manager in September while still in the chase for a playoff berth, but the Brewers dumped Ned Yost Monday in the midst of a 3-11 tailspin.

Milwaukee had a 4.5-game edge over Philadelphia for the wild-card berth at the end of August. That has disappeared. After the Brewers’ 5-4 loss to the Cubs Tuesday night in Dale Sveum’s debut as interim manager, they trail the Mets by a half-game in the wild-card standings.

Perhaps owner Mark Attanasio and GM Doug Melvin couldn’t bury thoughts of the Mets’ collapse a year ago. Certainly they haven’t forgotten their own team’s crash and burn in 2007, when the Brewers led the National League Central for most of the season and held a share of the lead on Aug. 22, but went 18-18 the rest of the way to finish two games behind the Cubs.

In recent years, the only moves with a resemblance to Yost’s firing took place in the NHL. In April 2007, New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello fired coach Claude Julien with the Devils in first place in the Atlantic Division and one week remaining in the regular season. He took over behind the bench himself, though he couldn’t help the Devils advance beyond the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

"I don't think we're at a point of being ready both mentally and (physically) to play the way that is necessary going into the playoffs," Lamoriello said after sending his first-year coach home. “He certainly understands,” Lamoriello added when pressed about the move. Sure he did.

Lamoriello had done this once before, dumping Robbie Ftorek with eight games left in the 1999-2000 season. Ftorek’s replacement, Larry Robinson, led the team to its second Stanley Cup title that spring.

There’s a key difference between the firings in New Jersey and Wisconsin. The Devils have been a perennial power in the NHL, and expectations are always high in the spring. The Brewers haven’t played in the postseason since 1982.

It’s Yost who has taken them to the brink two years in a row, but he hasn’t shown that he can lead his team to October's Promised Land. In fact, the front office has decided that Yost isn’t the guy who will do it. Milwaukee’s skipper is a fiery, tightly wound guy. If it’s fair to say the Brewers have been playing tight during their September slide, Yost may not have the personality to get his team to loosen up and turn things around.

The next two weeks may be Milwaukee’s best chance to reach the postseason anytime soon. It’s likely that the club’s top two pitchers, CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets, will be pitching somewhere else next spring, so being this close with two aces still in the stable is an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.

Yost was likely to be fired anyway if the Brewers failed to make the playoffs, and the team’s lack of composure down the stretch suggests it had little chance to claim the wild-card spot with Yost at the helm. To Sveum’s credit, he debuted with a markedly different lineup in place, replacing struggling Rickie Weeks in the leadoff spot with Mike Cameron, and batting J.J. Hardy fifth to provide some protection for cleanup hitter Prince Fielder. Corey Hart, who is stuck in a 2-for-33 funk, slides down into the sixth slot.

How Milwaukee fares over the final two weeks may be determined by the clubhouse atmosphere as much as it is by Sveum’s moves on the field. The Brewers have the talent to win; they have to find a way to regain their confidence. The truth is, the timing was right: firing Yost makes complete sense.