Sveum puts stamp on Brewers

CHICAGO -- New Brewers manager Dale Sveum didn't waste any time making changes. Among Sveum's moves Tuesday, when he took the reigns from Ned Yost for the remaining 12 games of the season: • He bounced left-hander Manny Parra from the rotation after a series of inconsistent starts. Right-hander Dave Bush moved up a day and will start Thursday's series finale in Chicago on short rest, and long reliever Seth McClung will rejoin the rotation to start Friday in Cincinnati. • He jumbled the top six spots in the lineup to help spark an offense that has been outscored this month, 75-38. Mike Cameron batted leadoff for just the second time this season and Ray Durham hit in the two-hole. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder hit third and fourth as usual, but J.J. Hardy was slotted fifth for the second time this year and slumping Corey Hart was dropped to sixth. • He told players in his first team meeting to expect to bunt and hit-and-run more often. In other words, the Yost critics who insisted the team should try to play more small ball may be getting their wish. "Hopefully this will get us jump-started," Braun said. "We know how good we were for the first five months of the season, and we need to find a way to play well for the last two weeks." The Brewers didn't arrive at the team hotel in Chicago until after 3 a.m. CT on Monday after being swept in Philadelphia, so Sveum was still in bed at 11 a.m. when his telephone rang. Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio and general manager Doug Melvin were on the other end of the line with news that Ned Yost had been dismissed and an offer for Sveum to take over. Sveum, who managed three seasons in Pittsburgh's Minor League chain but never in the Majors, accepted. He met with a throng of reporters on Tuesday before he had his first opportunity to address the whole team, but expected to deliver a simple message. "I'm just going to change a few things and [say], 'Go get 'em,'" Sveum said. "There's not much I can say. I'm going to let them know what kind of person I am and how I'm going to manage, but other than that, they have to go out and perform." The first sign that changes were afoot came when Brewers media relations boss Mike Vassallo delivered Sveum's lineup. Cameron was leading off despite his leading the team in strikeouts after sitting out the first month of the season. "Get a couple veterans up at the top of the lineup," Sveum said in explaining his thinking. "Cameron has done that before and had a lot of success there. It was just a feeling of getting some guys at the top of the order with some speed, and a left-handed bat [Durham's] at the top of the lineup." Entering Tuesday's game, Cameron had led off 152 times in his career while batting .258 with a .345 on-base percentage and an .813 OPS from that spot. He was 3-for-13 in previous at-bats against Cubs starter Ryan Dempster. The other major change came later, again from Vassallo. Parra, who lasted only 1 1/3 innings on Saturday in Philadelphia and surrendered five earned runs, will pitch out of the bullpen for the rest of the season. Parra has lost six of his past seven decisions and hit 160 innings on Saturday. The 25-year-old threw 133 innings in 2007, a year cut short when he fractured his left thumb trying to bunt against the Cubs. In the past, the Brewers have capped pitchers at about 30 innings over the previous year's total, but Yost declined any notion that Parra was tired. "I feel like I'm going to help us coming out of the 'pen the rest of the way," Parra said. "I'm disappointed. I mean, I pitched the whole year as a starter and it stinks to come down to the end and not be able to finish what I started, exactly. At the same time, I can take a positive from it because ... if there are any concerns about me being tired, this will be good for that." There could have made more changes. Melvin said on Tuesday that he offered Sveum the opportunity to make other changes to the coaching staff, but Sveum declined. Sveum did not bill his changes as the magic solution to the Brewers' mystifying slump. "The players make the difference," Sveum said. "I'm not going to sit here and say that I can make any difference. They have to perform, and what I'm going to do is try to bring an ease to them. Let them go play and have fun. It's the time of their life right now. "If, on March 31 when we opened right here this ballpark, if you had said, 'Hey, would you take being tied for a playoff berth at Game 151?' everyone in the clubhouse would have said, 'Heck, yeah.'"