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.

The Aeros made SEVEN roster moves the last wo days - a few just paper moves, but moves none the less.

Ready? Here goes:

Right-hander NICK PESCO was sent to high Class-A Kinston, catcher WYATT TOREGAS was placed on the Disabled List with a lower back strain, catcher DAVID WALLACE joined the team from Triple A Buffalo, right-hander CLIFF POLITTE was added to the roster from his rehab assignment, left-hander CHUCK LOFGREN returned to the Aeros from short-season Mahoning Valley, pitcher LUIS VALDEZ was transferred back to low Class-A Lake County and infielder CRISTO ARNAL was sent to Extended Spring Training.

Got all that? Hopefully, this helps:

Pesco was once again overmatched at Double-A (he was last year as well). H’s got some things to work on so doing it at Kinston makes more sense than getting his brains beat in by more experienced hitters.

I had a feeling something was wrong with Toregas since he hadn’t played in two days - I wonder if the back injury isn’t from the akward slide into second over the weekend. Originally, it looked like he really hurt his ankle, but the next day when I talked to him, he told me he felt fine. Backs are tricky (I know personally), so hopefully, it’s nothing too serious.

Doesn’t it figure, though, that as soon as backup catcher Javi Herrera is traded, Toregas goes down? That’s O.K. with Armando Camacaro activated, but it’ll be interesting to see if (former Aero) David Wallace becomes the main catcher until Toregas returns or is just with the team as a back up plan. Unfortunately, since neither Camacaro or Wallace can hit, neither are in the Tribe future plans. However, the Indians brass is increasingly getting higher on Toregas, as evidenced by the willingness to let Herrera go for essentially nothing.

Politte’s move is merely a paper move. The only difference is that now he counts against the team’s active roster, which is why Pesco had to be moved.

Lofgren’s transfer was also a paper move as he’s been with the team since returning from his spot start Friday in Buffalo, but he didn’t need to be activated (and thus count against the roster) until it was his turn to pitch again.

With Lofgren back on the active roster, Valdez returned to Lake County. He was only up to help the tired bullpen for a few days until Lofgren needed to be put back on the roster.

Lastly, Arnal simply sounds like a guy without a team and was bumped to extended S.T. with no where else to go until Mahoning Valley’s season gets underway June 19th.