Bell uses crowd to help complete rare assist to the plate

Josh Bell's first responsibility when Trey Mancini ripped a ball into the right field corner in the top of the sixth Friday night was to make sure the Orioles slugger actually touched first base as he attempted to stretch his hit into a double.

It's a small thing, and rarely does it come into play. But in just doing what he was supposed to do and staying back to keep an eye on Mancini rounding first, Bell actually was in perfect position to watch Juan Soto's throw from the right field corner sail over cutoff man Josh Harrison's outstretched grab.

And that's when Bell knew he needed to shift into his second responsibility on a play such as that, backing up Harrison. He ran several steps to his left and retrieved Soto's errant throw, then had to figure out where the Orioles' leading runner (Austin Hays) was currently positioned.

Hays, it turns out, was bolting for the plate, hoping to score a cheap run thanks to the Nationals' defensive miscue. Bell (and catcher Yan Gomes) had other ideas. Retrieving the ball and throwing it across his body in one motion, Bell hopped the ball to Gomes, who made the tough pick and then tagged Hays in time to record a critical out in the Nationals' 4-2 win over Baltimore.

"I didn't even see the runner going," Bell admitted during his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "It was more like the crowd kind of told me that he was going. Everyone was like: 'Ahhhhh!' So I heard that, I looked home. Yan was right there ready to go, and I made the play."

It drew a roar from the crowd of 14,369, and it proved to be among the most pivotal moments in the Nationals' victory.

"That's a huge play," said Bell, who also went 3-for-5 at the plate. "You've got to keep runs off the board to win the game. Especially the way Stephen (Strasburg) was pitching out there, it was fun. I haven't made a play like that in my career thus far. That was the first, hopefully, of many cool plays like that. It was definitely a highlight for me tonight."

It's certainly not a play Bell has made often. The 28-year-old slugger has 320 assists in his career, though 260 of those were simply tosses to the pitcher covering first base on a grounder to the right side. In fact, he had only made four throws to the plate in his career that turned into an out, none since 2018 with the Pirates.

This one didn't necessarily look pretty, but it got the job done. And for Bell, that's significant in itself given his past defensive woes.

"He worked so hard this spring training with (infield coach Tim Bogar) on his throwing," manager Davey Martinez said. "And he did it perfectly. We want him to throw the ball down. He threw it down. And threw pretty much a good ball for us to get the runner out. He did a great job."