I get the sense the Aeros are driving a lot of fans crazy these days. At least they’ve been driving me crazy for a while now.

Granted, ups and downs are a part of every season. I used to have a manager in Triple-A Columbus named Trey Hillman who used say to me all the time, “Stephanie, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Relax.”

I do try to be patient. But my patience has run thin lately. Aside from a recent 10-game stretch in which the Aeros went 8-2, the team has not looked very good for a nearly two months now.

A part of the reasdon is that Akron keeps losing its best players to Triple-A (SS Asdrubal Cabrera, OF Brian Barton, P Aaron Laffey) like it does every year.

But instead of getting Class-A Kinston’s top players in return (1B Matt Whitney, 3B Wes Hodges, P’s Kevin Dixon, Ryan Edell and James Deters), the Aeros have been given subs and forced to play the remainder of the season with several players playing out of position.

It’s not exactly the formula for success, and it’s very frustrating.

And when I’m really moody, I think maybe the Indians just want Kinston to win this season and just don’t care much about Akron. But a good scout friend of mine insists the lack of movement doesn’t have as much to do with wanting one team to win over another as it does setting up the entire system (majors to minors) for proper movement in the next year or two.

But why wait till next year?

The answer was complicated. But his premise that there’s much more thought put into this than we like to think at times is no doubt true. The Indians know what they’re doing, even if it drives us all crazy at different levels in the minors in the meantime.

However, if the Aeros aren’t careful, they could easily find themselves out of the race within a week with Erie playing well and the Aeros headed there for a pivotal three-game matchup Monday through Wednesday.

With the current state of the team, I don’t know how far the team would make it in a playoff run. But it would at least be nice to get a chance to find out.

News out of Canal Park despite the team being on the road has brought yet another handful of changes to the team’s roster.

This time, they are moves that could strengthen the team’s chance to make a post season run, with the exception of the latest Michael Aubrey injury - but more on that in a minute.

First, and perhaps most important, the Aeros received outfielder Brian Barton from Triple-A Buffalo after a two-week stint with the Bisons. Not only will Barton once again bolster the team’s offense, but it will keep the Areos from having to use second baseman Argenis Reyes in left field - where he played Sunday.

The Aeros also received pitchers Rich Rundles and Eric Dubose from Buffalo, while sending reliever T.J. Burton to Class-A Kinston. Rundles, a reliever, has shuttled back and forth between Akron and Buffalo all season. Dubose (4-3, 4.24 ERA in 11 games including eight starts) will join the starting rotation in place of right-hander Jake Dittler, who was placed on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation retroactive to Aug. 6th.

That leaves us with Aubrey. Yes, once again, the Tribe’s often-injured No. 1 pick in the 2003 draft is sidelined - this time with an abdomin strain. At some point, you just figure he’s going to have to run out of body parts to hurt. It just figures, too. After struggling since joining the team from Kinston, Aubrey was just starting to hit last week.

A lot of baseball folks might not consider losing their No. 2 and No. 3 hitters a way to “jump start” a struggling team.

Yet that’s exactly what Aeros manager Tim Bogar believes happened to the Aeros when they lost shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and right fielder Brian Barton recently in a week’s span.

Say what?

“This change is exactly what this team needs,” Bogar said confidently. “We were kind of mumbling and bumbling along, just kind of getting through it. Then all of a sudden Cabrera leaves, a week later Barton leaves, and these guys still here are like ‘Hey, what’s going on? Maybe I have a chance to move. Maybe I could do some things and get out of here. Now I’m the guy, so I better put some numbers up.”

First baseman/designated hitter Jordan Brown has been putting up numbers all season long, entering Wednesday game batting a team-best .331 (second in the league) and leading the Eastern League in hits with 128. This, despite battling a nagging knee injury that will require off-season surgery.

Center fielder Trevor Crowe has begun to pull his weight, turning his dismal season around the last month to enter Wednesday batting a much more respectable .248.

Now it’s time for veteran left fielder Ryan Goleski (.253) to do the same, as well as shortstop Brandon Pinckney (.220) - now that he has the advantage of playing every day with Cabrera gone.

“Right now we got what we got,” Bogar said. “We’ll figure it out. There’s plenty of hitters on this team.”

The Aeros’ pitching staff needs to share a portion of the burden during this final month as well, as the hitters have carried the team most of the season.

As decent as Wednesday’s starter Chuck Lofgren has been at 10-6 with a 4.28 ERA, the left-hander has yet to live up to his pre-season “ace” billing. And as a three-year Double-A veteran, right-hander Jake Dittler needs to do better than the 4.37 ERA he’s posted in 19 appearances.

Brian Barton has been anticipating a move to Triple-A Buffalo all season, and it finally looks like the Aeros uheralded outfielder could be on his way up any day now.

If it isn’t enough that Barton ranks sixth in the Eastern League with a .312 average in 103 games 17 doubles, 9 home runs, 41 walks, 56 RBI and a Minor-League leading 28 hit-by-pitches, the door was opened for Barton last week Bisons outfielder Brad Snyder broke his finger. Snyder is expected to be out for the remainder of the season.

It’s been (understandably) frustrating for Barton, a non-drafted free agent out of the Univ. of Miami, to once again be playing so well this season but remain stuck behind by more heralded (read top-dollar prospects).

As for the team as a whole, the struggling Aeros have managed to put their recent losing ways behind them for now in winning three straight entering Thursday’s game, regaining a tie with Erie for first place in the Southern Division.

This, without the team’s top two players in SS Asdrubal Cabrera (promoted Sunday to Buffalo) and IB Jordan Browen (sidelined with a knee injury that needs surgery at season’s end).

For the team to make waves in the playoffs, it’s going to need to see the stars of Wednesday’s win - left fielder Ryan Goleski and first baseman Michael Aubrey - continue to step up down the stretch.

Six Aeros will be accompanying Aeros manager Tim Bogar to the Eastern League All-Star Game July 11 - the highest number of players from the 12-team league.

Making the trip to Norwich, Ct., with Bogar are pitchers Randy Newsom and Reid Santos, first baseman Jordan Brown, shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, catcher Wyatt Toregas and right fielder Brian Barton.

‘‘I’m not surprised at all that we placed so many guys,” Bogar told me Monday aftrenoon from Erie, Pa., where the Aeros are playing on the second leg of a three-city road trip. “Jordan Brown is having a great year, Brian Barton is doing well and Asdrubal Cabrera is perhaps the best player in the league. Wyatt’s catching abilities behind the plate set him apart, and enough
can’t be said about the job Reid has done in a variety of roles for us and how Randy has stepped right into such an important closer’s role.”

Bogar is right. Hoever, that doesn’t always translate into the right players being picked (anyone remember Ronald “Bear” Bay going just last year?) But voters - media and fans - got it right this season. Consider:

Cabrera and Brown vied for the honor of the Aeros’ first-half MVP, with the slick fielding Cabrera owning the third-best batting average in the league at .338 (91-for-269) featuring a league-high 64 runs scored.

But the slugging Brown has been just as important, checking in at sixth place in league batting average (.321), but owning league highs in hits (95) and doubles (25).

Toregas may be batting just .240 (41-for-171), but there’s more to the selection of the catcher than the obvious stats - as Bogar said he considers Toregas’ game-caling and defense to be among the leagues best.

While steady most of the first half, Barton has begun to take his game to another level over the last month of play. Plus, he’s not afraid to take one - or two - for the team. In 75 games, Barton is batting .303 (82-for-271) with 11 doubles, seven home runs, 40 RBI and a minor-league-leading 24 hit-by-pitches.

That leaves the lefty Santos and side-arming righty Newsom - a pair of pitchers who have been instrumental in keeping the Aeros pitching staff ranked among the best in the league.

The do-it-all Santos started out as a late-inning reliever, moved over to closing when the team’s original closer Bubbie Buzachero was promoted to Triple-A and has spent the last six game in the starting rotation. In 22 games, he’s 5-1 with a save and a sparkling 1.99
ERA and 44 strikeouts.

All Newsom has done since he joined the team May 12 is go 12-for-12 in save opportunities while recording a 3-0 mark and 2.28 ERA along the way.

Brian Barton missed by pitch - you don’t hear that very often.

Usually it’s Barton hit by pitch. And another pitch. And yet one more time…

In fact, it’s happened a Minor-League leading 22 times this year as the Aeros right-fielder is way ahead of last year’s pace when he was plunked 25 times.

Barton has a propensity for getting nailed despite not owning a stance that particularly crowds the plate. This knack, if you will, came into strong focus duing the Aeros just concluded four-game series with Bowie at Canal Park.

Bear with me here, as I’ll get back to the missed by pitch part soon. But first, some background:

It began at the beginning of Saturday’s game when Barton was hit by a pitch in the first inning by former Aeros pitcher Oscar Alvarez. Barton says it usually doesn’t hurt when he gets hit, but this one obviously did. In a rarity, Barton took plenty of time trying to walk it off before finally taking his base.

Two at-bats later, a grouchy and probably achy Barton was called out on strikes. Soon, he’d been tossed by the home plate umpire after an act that included flipping his bat and leaving it at home plate, tossing his arm guard on the field as he walked away, and finally punctuated by throwing his batting gloves - one by one - over the dugout railing onto the field before exiting down the tunnel and into the lockerroom.

It was a rare show of emotion for the laid back Barton, so out of character, Aeros manager Tim Bogar called it Barton’s “out-of-body experience.”

Still, after the game, Bogar had a closed door meeting with Barton, in essence explaining that while he has a right to disagree with the call, he should have handled it more professionally by showing respect for the game.

“I told him, ‘I’m not telling you not to be Brian Barton. Be Brian Barton. But understand that the world might not understand Brian Barton.’ Sometimes, you have to be sensitive to what other people think.”

Espeically in a game where one scout, coach or front office person’s perception can mean all the difference between a career in the big leagues and one spent scuffling in the minors.

So, on we move to Monday’s game. With two outs in the first inning, Barton slams a two-run home run to give the Aeros an early lead. During his next at-bat, the first pitch from Bowie ace Radhames Liz whizzes behind Barton. Liz, obviously throwing a purpose pitch, is immediatley tossed by the home plate umpire for throwing at Barton.

For the next 10 minutes, Bowie’s manager comes out to argue, another pitcher in the Bowie dugout (Rosman Garcia) gets ejected as well for throwing a folding chair onto the field from the dugout and finally another pitcher is summoned to begin warming up.

While all this is going on, Barton is quietly standing in front of the Aeros dugout, waiting for order to be restored and the new pitcher to get ready.

If it were me, I’d probably (O.K., I would) have a few choice words for Liz and any other idiot in the dugout acting like a jerk. But Barton just stood there, waiting. Lesson learned.

In the meantime, Bogar got steamed while talking to the umpires, wondering why the Bowie manager (Bien Figueroa) wasn’t tossed as well, as the orders to go after Barton most likely came from him.

“My question to the home plate umpire was - we do nothing wrong, and we get in trouble? (the rule states that the benches must be warned and if it a guy gets hit again, not only the pitcher but the manger would be automatically ejected). So I asked him, can’t you just throw him (Figueroa) out, too?”

Barton handled it well, and so did Bogar, despite having a very valid point.

Yet, by the end of the night’s action, I found it rather ironic that all the fuss of the evening was made over the one time Barton was actually missed by a pitch - and not hit by one.

During the Aeros batting practice Thursday, I saw something really odd that made me do a double take. Instead of standing around in the outfield shagging balls where he usually does, outfielder Brian Barton was lined up with a handful of infielders taking ground balls at short.

What? I stood up and walked a little closer to make sure that what I thought I saw was really happening. Indeed, there was the lanky 6-foot-3 Barton trying his best to blend in with all the quick little infielders.

“Don’t stand straight up when you throw!” Aeros manager Tim Bogar offered to Barton between hitting grounders to the group. “You’re legs are too stiff!”

“Here, try it again, and this time stay through it when you throw,” Bogar said, slapping another ball toward a concentrating Barton. “There you go!”

Minor leaguers are always a target for a position change. Especially minor leaguer’s like Barton, who can hit. It’s called making a spot for them to get their bat in a major league line up.

Remember when the Indians suddenly decided to try and move outfielder Trevor Crowe to second base at the end of the Aeros season last year? Crowe tried so hard to hurry and make the transition, it totally affected his offense, which up to that point had been superb. In fact, some of his struggles this season could even be linked to that failed experiment, leaving Crowe to feel he has to get to Cleveland NOW.

So Barton taking balls with the infielders led me, as well as a few other interested observers, to wonder if the Tribe’s deep thinkers were considering tinkering with a position change for Barton. In made sense in that the outfield is a position at which they have a lot of depth.

But short? Now that seemed rediculous. Barton is a power hitter. If a move was a must, third base would certainly be a better fit for him. So what in the world was going on?

After Thursday’s win, I asked Bogar about the strange events earlier in the day. He smiled, than assured me Barton was not being moved.

“It’s just to work on his throwing,” Bogar said. “We’re just trying to get his feet and body under control. It’s just easier to do it in the infield. It’s just drill work. He’s not playing shortstop, he’s not going to play third, he’s not going to be in the infield…I Promise. I’ll quit if that happens.”

Ah baseball, I love the endless possibilities each day brings. There’s always way more going on behind the scenes than just during the game itself.

I get a handful of emails a week from people asking about players and just wanting to chat about some particular baseball subject. I thought I’d include a few from the past week as some I’ve commented on via threads to certain posts, others I’ve just responded personally.

K.J. wondered what the Aeros might be doing as a tribute to the Virginia tech shootings, especially with starting catcher Wyatt Toregas being a former baseball player at Va. Tech. I plan to check with Toregas when the team returns Friday to see if there’s anything special he’s done.

K.J. figured maybe the Eastern League could provide small patches for the players to wear on their uniforms. I think it’s a great idea, I just don’t know if there’s enough money in the low minor leagues to pull it off.

Mike’s been mentioning outfielder Brian Barton alot, and I promised to talk more about him. He’s a very interesting guy in that he played college ball at the University of Miami (a hotbed for players getting drafted), yet wasn’t drafted. Cleveland signed him as a free agent in 2004, and got quite a steal.

For anyone whose seen Barton play, it’s hard to believe he didn’t get drafted. He’s an above average outfielder and has a pretty good plan at the plate. When he first came to Akron mid-way through the season last year, Barton told me it was a complete misunderstading as to why he didn’t get drafted.

He’s a very bight guy and was majoring in engineering (aerospace, I believe). When scouts asked if he wanted to play ball he told them that while he loved baseball, school was important, too. He didn’t mean he wouldn’t sign, he just wanted them to know upfront his education was important to him and his family. So everyone backed off thinking he wouldn’t sign. While his honesty is commendable, it probably cost him a decent signing bonus.

None the less, Barton has quickly risen through the Tribe’s minor league ranks, and for many, came out of no where to be ranked by baseball America as the Tribe’s 5th best prospect heading into the 2007 season. I think he kind of enjoyed not having much pressure on him as an undrafted free agent, because in his first two pro seasons, he combined to hit .324with 50 doubles, 10 triples, 26 homers and 147 RBI at Lake County in ‘05 and Kinston/Akron in ‘06.

Barton struggled a little bit to start the season this year, perhaps unfamiliar with the spotlight being on him. However, in the last week he’s begun to have better at bats (although he still leads the team with 17 strikeouts) and is now hitting a more respectable .271 with three doubles, a triple, two home runs, eight RBI and a team-high four stolen bases.

Mike points out that Barton also has been hit by a pitch a team-high four times. That does seem strange to me, but could be a part of his early struggles in crowding the plate while trying too hard to make something happen instead of staying within himself. Let’s watch that stat and see what happens the next week or two. My guess is that the number stays at four now that Barton’s hitting better.

Lastly, a writer lamented about Joe Ness struggling out of the bullpen in the Aeros loss last night. I like Ness, and just chalk up yesterday’s rough outing to him being a starter shoved in the Aeros rotation in an effort to get him promoted to Akron. If an Aeros starter were to go down, Ness could slide right into a starting job. Until then, he’s stuck in the pen. So, let’s give him a long leash as he adjusts on the fly to a new role.