Bell's walk-off blast caps five-RBI night

Josh Bell couldn't have picked a better time to hit his first home run of the season. Or his first Double-A homer. Or his first walk-off homer as a pro.

The Pirates' No. 3 prospect blasted a three-run walk-off shot to achieve each of those milestones in Altoona's 5-3 win over Erie on Saturday night. 

The long ball came on the first pitch Bell saw from SeaWolves right-hander Edgar De La Rosa in the bottom of the ninth. With Keon Broxton and Gift Ngoepe at second and third, the switch-hitter -- batting from the left side -- lifted De La Rosa's slider over the wall in right field, sending the 5,185 fans in attendance at Peoples Natural Gas Field into pandemonium.

"Honestly, it's like running around on a cloud," Bell said. "We had great turnout. It was as many fans as I've played in front of as a professional outside the Futures Game last year. It was just a packed stadium, which made it awesome. Being able to turn third and see my teammates waiting for me and how hyped they all were, it was pretty incredible."

It was Bell's first regular-season shot since June 12, 2014, when he had completed a streak of three straight games with a homer for Class A Advanced Bradenton. He didn't go deep in 24 Eastern Leagues games last year following his promotion and had yet to go deep in his first 18 games this year. 

"It's great, you know," Bell said. "I put in a lot of hard work this offseason, and it's starting to show on the field. That's about as meaningful as a homer can get, because I'd rather have the first come there then when we were up 13 or down 13 or sometime when it didn't matter nearly as much for the team."

But don't equate Bell's lack of homers for a lack of overall production. The 22-year-old slugger entered the day on a run of five straight games with multiple hits. That came to an end Saturday with a 1-for-3 showing, but he also brought home a run with a groundout in the first and another with a sacrifice fly in the third. In doing so, he matched a career high, giving him all of Altoona's seven RBIs through the first two games of its series with Erie. 

Through 19 contests this season, Bell leads the Eastern League with a .372 average and ranks third with a .432 on-base percentage and fifth with a .932 OPS. That's an obvious -- albeit small-sampled -- improvement on the .287/.343/.309 line he put up with the Curve a season ago, and he credits a single in his first plate appearance with making him feel comfortable immediately upon his return to Double-A ball.

"I think my first at-bat here helped me a lot," Bell said. "Last year, it took me a couple games to get really settled, so that started me off in a little bit of a rut. This time, it was 40 degrees, drizzling on Opening Day, and I hit a ball that ended up in right field for a hit. Since then, it's just been taking that momentum into each coming game.

"I feel great at the plate right now. We'll see how the season goes, but I'm really hoping nothing changes in terms of how I'm producing."

Since he was taken as an outfielder in the second round of the 2011 Draft, Bell has always had a offense-first profile. MLB.com has given its No. 34 overall prospect above-average 60 grades for both his hit and power tools. Where the question marks have arisen are on the defensive side, and the Pirates -- who have a stocked, young outfield with Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco -- have moved Bell to first base to clear his path to the Majors, a directive first established in last year's Arizona Fall League. 

He admits he's still adjusting to the speed of play at the right side of the infield and trying to improve his reads on the ball coming off the bat, but overall, he feels like he's slowly but surely getting a handle of things at first.

"Just taking it a day at a time right now, just trying to get one-tenth of one percent better, so by the end of the season, I can say I've gotten 30 percent better," Bell said. "It just boils down to how much work I'm putting in there. Through the Fall League and this spring, I'd say I've taken some surprisingly big strides and I'm feeling more and more comfortable."