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.

True story:

I was at the bank this afternoon and ran into Aeros hitting coach Lee May Jr. He was obviously tired, having just gotten off the team bus a few hours earlier after a long bus ride back to Akron from Portland, Maine. Thank goodness they had Monday off.

He asked if I’d heard about the Aeros near-brawl at Hadlock Field on Saturday. I had, but I let him give me some more detail anyway. His version was worth a few laughs.

Here’s the account of the story from the Portland PR guy who writes the game recaps. It’s pretty accurate, but remember he’s working for Portland, so it’s likely to be a bit slanted as one would expect:

SEA DOGS RALLY FALLS JUST SHORT, LOSE 9-6 TO AKRON
Benches empty in the seventh inning causing a 10-minute delay

(Portland, ME) – Akron rallied from a 4-1 deficit, scoring eight unanswered runs and held on to beat the Portland Sea Dogs, 9-6 in front of a sellout crowd of 7,368 fans on Saturday night at Hadlock Field.

Akron tied the game at four in the fifth inning on Ryan Goleski’s 3-run triple off Portland starter Tommy Hottovy. In the seventh inning off Lincoln Holdzkom (3-1), Trevor Crowe singled home the go ahead run and David Wallace followed with a grand slam. Holdzkom, who suffered his first loss in the Red Sox Organization, threw the next pitch behind Rodney Choy Foo - leading to his ejection.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Portland scored the game’s final two runs on Bryan Pritz’s RBI triple and Jeff Natale’s sacrifice fly. Jay Johnson followed Natale and watches a Stevens’s fastball sail over his left shoulder, leading to the ejection of Stevens and Akron Manager Tim Bogar.

As Bogar was leaving the field, he shouted into Portland’s dugout, causing both benches to clear and delaying the game 10 minutes. There were was no brawl on the field but Portland Hitting Coach Russ Morman was ejected for leaving the dugout and yelling at Bogar.

The Sea Dogs had one final chance in the ninth inning, loading the bases against Randy Newsom but Johnson and Andrew Pinckney were retired to end the game. Newsom, a former Red Sox farmhand, picked up his fifth save of the year.

Some thoughts:

* I like to see Bogar get fired up every once in a while. But of course it happened on the road again, and home fans didn’t get to enjoy it.

* Perhaps a new budding rivalry with someone other than Altoona is a good thing. Remember, these two teams played each other in the playoffs the last two years with Akron winning its second championship in 2005 and Portland grabbing its first title last year.

* Good to see Crowe, Goleski and Wallace hitting. For Crowe and Goleski - it’s about time. A slam by Wallace is a nice surprise.

* With Jensen Lewis promoted to Triple-A Buffalo last week, it’d good to see Newsom doing well in the closer’s role.