Bell stays ready on defense and delivers in a pinch

MIAMI – When Josh Bell returned to the Nationals this offseason, he knew he was being brought in to mainly do one thing: hit for power.

Yes, Bell had played a lot of first base throughout his previous nine years in the major leagues, including the 1 ½ seasons during his first stint in Washington. But the Nats had already acquired Nathaniel Lowe, a Gold Glove Award winner at first base, in December via a trade with the Rangers in exchange for left-handed reliever Robert Garcia.

So it was that Bell would be the everyday designated hitter in manager Davey Martinez’s lineups while also backing up Lowe at first. This allowed Bell to focus on hitting the ball in the air to increase his home run output and slugging percentage.

But that didn’t mean Bell could just let his glovework at first fall to the wayside. He still needed to be able to play defense if, for whatever reason, Lowe wasn’t in the lineup.

Well, his first opportunity to play the field in 2025 came in Friday night’s opener against the Marlins. And it came at the last minute, so Bell had to be ready for it.

Martinez’s first edition of his lineup for the series opener had Lowe at first and Bell as the DH. But a little over an hour before first pitch, Lowe was scratched with an illness, meaning Bell had to grab his glove and get on the field.

What followed was Bell’s best all-around game of the young season. Plus, a surprise pinch-hit three-run double by Lowe to give the Nats the lead in the eighth inning.

“I think it just signalizes the importance of staying ready,” Bell said after the 7-4 win over another one of his former teams. “Taking ground balls, getting extra work, early work, always being ready, because you never know. I'm sure Nate could have gone today, but it was nice to see him get a blow there and have him come in the clutch. We'll see what happens tomorrow.”

Bell delivered offensively, too. His two-run home run in the sixth cut the Marlins’ lead in half, sparking the Nats’ late rally. He also drew a walk and raced around from first base to score on Alex Call's double to left, putting the Nats up 7-4 in the ninth.

But Bell was most active on defense. He recorded five putouts himself, made an incredible catch and stretch to beat a runner and assist Paul DeJong to get the out after a bad throw, and made a running grab into the foul ball netting down the first base line on a popup.

“I told Nate, whatever you need from me this year,” he said. “I know that as a Gold Glover, he wants to be there 162 games. But if he needs blow days, I'm gonna be ready for him and be ready for the team. I'm going to continue to try to get better over there and continue to try to further my career.”

“Man, he stepped up big time,” Martinez said. “Made some nice plays over at first base. A big home run. Ran the bases well. He's a constant pro. Like I said before, the reason why I wanted him here is because he could teach our young kids a lot.”

Bell hasn’t been known to be an elite defender throughout his career. But that doesn’t mean he stops putting the work in and staying ready in case a situation like yesterday's comes up.

“He does his work every day over there,” Martinez said. “He takes ground balls. He works on all the little things that you need to work on at first base. So putting him over there, for him, it's more muscle memory, right? He's done it. But it's all because he goes out there every day, he takes his ground balls and does his work.”

He did all of this while dealing with a shuffling infield, too.

CJ Abrams exited the game in the fourth inning after re-aggravating his hip flexor injury that caused him to miss the first two games against the Dodgers earlier this week. That meant DeJong had to slide over to shortstop while Amed Rosario came in to play third base.

But after Lowe’s clutch pinch-hit in DeJong’s place, he couldn’t stay on the field much longer. So José Tena pinch-ran for him at second and stayed in the game to play third base, bumping Rosario over to shortstop for the eighth and ninth innings.

All in all, Bell worked with five different infielders, plus Keibert Ruiz behind the plate, and four different pitchers during the game. And as he exemplified by stepping in at first base at the last minute, all 26 guys on the active roster need to be ready to play at any given time.

“It's just part of the game,” Bell said. “It's just a next man up mentality. We gotta be careful with (Abrams) because we have so much baseball to play. So hopefully it's not as bad as some injuries are in the game. Hopefully, he's back soon. But yeah, we're all ready on the bench. We're all ready. We take pride in our early work, our ground balls. So if we can take care of the baseball, our pitchers are going to be just fine.”