Brewers fire Ron Roenicke, reportedly set to hire Craig Counsell

MILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee Brewers fired manager Ron Roenicke on Sunday after the team started the Major League Baseball season with a league-worst 7-18 record.

President and general manager Doug Melvin announced the move hours after the team's 5-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs. The Brewers will name Craig Counsell as Roenicke's replacement during a news conference Monday, according to multiple media reports.

"This came together fairly quick," Melvin told reporters. "You can look at the two or three games and say we played better, but we looked at it how we performed over the entire month [of April] and how we performed over the course of the last 100 games."

The victory Sunday gave the Brewers their first consecutive victories of the season, in their 24th and 25th games, and first series win. Before this year, the most games Milwaukee needed to reach consecutive wins was 18 in 1972, according to Stats.

"The last three games the players have performed better and you say, 'Why couldn't that have happened earlier?' It's [a lack of] consistency. We just did not play good baseball until the last few games," Melvin said. "We couldn't wait to see if we'd lose three more or seven of the next 10 or whatever. Ron and I were both very frustrated at how the team was playing. We talked a lot about how you get the guys going and performing on a consistent basis."

Roenicke was stunned by the timing of the move.

"I told him I wish he would have fired me a week ago instead of right when the team started playing well," Roenicke told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by telephone. "That bothered me. When he asked me to come up to his office, I figured it couldn't be good."

In just over four seasons with the Brewers, the 58-year-old Roenicke was 342-331.

In his first season as major league manager in 2011, Roenicke led the Brewers to a 96-66 record -- the best in team history -- and the National League Central title. The Brewers beat Arizona in the first round of the playoffs and lost to St. Louis in the National League Championship Series.

Milwaukee was 83-79 in 2012, 74-88 in 2013 and 82-80 last season.

"We're not giving up," Melvin told reporters. "There's a point where we have to go out and win ballgames. Let's see if the change does anything to prevent having these losing streaks. Players' performances always tell us which direction we need to head. It's our job to get the most out of these players on a regular basis. I've never been big on in-house changes, but it just didn't feel good to be doing this.

"It just felt like September all over again," Melvin added, referring to a stretch last season in which the Brewers went 9-17. "I heard that a lot."

Roenicke hit .238 with 17 homers and 113 RBIs in 527 games in eight seasons as an outfielder with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.