Will Dale Sveum make the difference in the Brewer playoff run? Too early to tell. Was he heavily photographed in his debut? Yes, absolutely, without question. Dale Sveum might be the most photogenic manager the Brewers have ever had.

Win Probability Graph
BR Box Score

Dale Sveum said the Brewers showed more life in his debut as manager last night than they'd shown in previous games. The Brew Town Beat says the Brewers were Sveumed last night. I will say this: I thought the Brewers had an opportunity to win last night. I didn't feel that way when they fell behind in games over the previous week or two.

The Official Site says the team is hoping for a lift from the return of Robin Yount as bench coach. Hopefully that lift is just slow developing. At least the coaching staff's sense of humor is improving:

Five Yost stories today, five bullet points.

• Adam McCalvy over at The Official Site has a longer story on the Ned Yost press conference from yesterday.
• Tangotiger takes a look at Ned's usage of Brian Shouse.
• David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution thinks Ned will end up on Bobby Cox's staff next season, if he's not managing somewhere else.
• Rowland's Office is screaming in torment at the possibility of Ned eventually replacing Bobby Cox.
• Jeff Moore of Dugout Central credits the Brewers for sticking to their plan.

So, now that we're past the transitional phase, what still needs fixing? Sveum has moved Manny Parra out of the rotation, to keep his arm from falling off. He's sent David Riske off to get his arm fixed. But he still has a sputtering offense. FanGraphs takes a look at the heart of the Brewers order in September. The Brewers have scored five or less runs in 13 straight games, the fourth longest streak in franchise history and the longest since 1972. Amazingly, the Brewers had similar streaks of 12, 15 and 17 games in the same season in 1972. That team won 65 games under three managers.

Dayn Perry now lists the Mets as the favorites to win the Wild Card. If the Brewers miss the playoffs, we'll have one final question to answer: is this "a" historic collapse or "an" historic collapse?

On injuries:

Padres C Josh Bard has been shut down for 2008 after suffering a triceps injury.
Erik Bedard is done for 2008 and will undergo exploratory surgery on his shoulder to see if they can find and correct any problems.
Phillies SP Joe Blanton apparently pitched through a bout with shoulder tendinitis. That's not something I'd advise.
Rockies SP Jeff Francis will be shut down for the remainder of 2008 to allow his sore shoulder to recover.
Scott Kazmir pitched through an illness Monday that left him weak and out of sorts.
Dodgers RP Hong-Chih Kuo won't throw at all for a few days to recover from triceps tendinitis.
Fernando Tatis, who was having a surprising comeback season with the Mets, left last night's game in the fifth inning with a separated shoulder and is done for the season.

Ok, it's probably safe to assume the Cubs will make the playoffs now. So what should their rotation look like? Normally, articles about playoff rotations posted weeks in advance bore the crap out of me, but this one raises some interesting points.

Oh, and apparently Fans Bring the Sperm Day at Kleenex Stadium Miyagi in Japan was a rousing success.

Drink up.

So, in this morning's Mug I included this stat, to get people thinking a bit about the Brewers' catching situation:

The Brewers have what I consider to be a disturbing trend going on with their catchers, dating back to last season, but also visible during the Damian Miller era: They play their starting catchers a lot, often to the point of impacting their performance. Last year, despite being unavailable for some significant stretches of time, Estrada caught more innings than all but 7 NL catchers. He caught nearly everyday despite being nearly unable to move in August and September.

Make no mistake, Jason Kendall is catching a lot this season too. Consider this list: the top 10 NL Catchers by percentage of team innings caught.

Jason Kendall, 88.6%
Brian McCann, 88.1%
Russell Martin, 86.7%
Geovany Soto, 85.2%
Yadier Molina, 79.3%
Bengie Molina, 76.0%
Paul Bako, 71.8%
Chris Snyder, 70.0%
Josh Bard, 70.0%
J.R. Towles, 64.0%

An important note regarding this list: Brian McCann is 24. Martin and Soto are 25. In fact, there's only three catchers on this list over 30: Bako (37), Kendall (34) and Bard (30).

There were only five catchers in the National League who caught 1000 innings last season. Kendall is on pace to catch 1282. That's more than any NL backstop caught in 2007, and it'd be the second highest total of his career. Again, he's 34 years old and has already caught over 14,000 innings. Maybe this would all be irrelevant if he was hitting. But as I mentioned above, there's a visible decline in play. His OPS is down over 150 points in May. And he's still got 4 full months of catching nearly every day ahead of him.

At the same time, he has a capable backup. Mike Rivera battled it out in spring training and beat out an established major league catcher (Eric Munson) and a fan favorite (Vinny Rottino) to earn the right to wear his catcher's gear just 8 times and get just 25 plate appearances in the opening 47 games. It's hard to imagine he's having any luck staying sharp when he's playing less than once per week. But he's still 7-for-24, hitting 27 points better than Kendall.

I don't think one can make an argument that Rivera should play every day, or even that a 50/50 split is in order. I like Kendall's contributions to this team, and I've bought into the hype on his defensive skills and game-calling abilities. I have one simple recommendation that I think would keep Kendall stronger and healthier, keep Rivera getting consistent plate appearances and give the team the best chance to win:

When Manny Parra starts, Mike Rivera should too. This is win-win all around. It gives Kendall consistent rest, Rivera consistent plate appearances, and it gives Parra a familiar catcher to throw to as he works to improve his game at the big league level. Parra has a 4.09 ERA this season when pitching to Rivera, and a 4.50 ERA when pitching to Kendall. Plus, Rivera caught Parra's perfect game in AAA last season.

What do you think?