Biggest issues as Pittsburgh sports return to play: Which Josh Bell will Pirates get

It seems as if Pittsburgh’s three professional sports teams finally are on the verge of returning to play after the coronavirus lockdown.

The Pirates’ first regular-season game is Friday. The Penguins’ first exhibition game is July 28 against the Philadelphia Flyers. That’s also the day the Steelers are supposed to report for training camp.

Supposed to.

So this week at “Breakfast With Benz,” we are looking at five issues — one per day between now and Friday — that are the most pressing to each of the three local franchises.

On-field topics. Not “how” they are going to return to play under covid-19 restrictions. But how will they win or lose “if” they do resume competition.

Like, actual sports stuff. Remember that?

Today we start with the Pirates and which version of Josh Bell the team will get during the shortened 2020 season.

The one who appeared to be an early MVP candidate last season with a .338 batting average, 18 home runs and an OPS of 1.091 as of June 6?

Or the one who ended up with a .208 average for the month of June and a .218 average in July, and failed to homer between July 6 and Aug. 10?

During the sixth inning of Saturday night’s warmup game against the Cleveland Indians at PNC Park, the crowd roared with approval as Bell launched a drive that went to the center field wall for a double.

Well, at least the artificial crowd noise that was being pumped over the radio and TV broadcast seemed to like it. I’m sure most real Pirates fans reacted the same way.

Sure, Bell may have grounded out in his previous two at-bats and the Pirates lost 5-3. But seeing Bell generate that kind of pop — from the right-handed batter’s box — to straight-away center was a good sign.

And something that manager Derek Shelton insists the club has noticed from Bell since “Spring Training 2.0” rebooted last month.

“During 2.0, (Bell’s) swings have been really good,” Shelton said a day before the game. “He’s been on time. From the end of 1.0 to 2.0, the things that he and (hitting coach) Rick Eckstein outlined for him to work on, he’s really taken to.”

Based on what Bell and Eckstein have said, a lot of those “things” Shelton has referred to have been about mental fortitude and approach to timing. Not so much breaking down swing mechanics.

Whatever the path is to success, the Pirates desperately need the version of Bell that they had through the first week of June last season. Granted, Bell would be hard pressed to duplicate what he did over the first six weeks of last season. Those numbers were on a historic pace.

But he’s the only player capable of carrying the team offensively — even if the likes of Bryan Reynolds, Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman have reasonable facsimiles of their 2019 campaigns. If Bell plays like an All-Star and surges early as he did a year ago, that could be enough to help keep this 60-game sprint interesting.

If he goes into a funk like he did during the mid-summer months, there just isn’t enough firepower on this roster to offset that.

Especially with the likes of Starling Marte, Corey Dickerson and Melky Cabrera gone. Not to mention the uncertain status of Gregory Polanco and a pitching staff that will no doubt need significant run support.

During the winter, Bell admitted that he “got caught up in (his) head just a little bit too much.”

That can’t happen again. Last week, Eckstein praised Bell for his “soul-searching” during the quarantine, with the goal of tuning out “white noise.” He has said that the first baseman has a better understanding of who he is as a hitter. One that won’t let “distractions infiltrate his process.”

That sense of mental grounding was evident during PiratesFest in February when the 27-year-old spoke about his need to avoid getting caught on the “roller coaster” of success and failure.

“When things are working, you try not to change,” Bell said at the time. “When you aren’t winning games, you try to make adjustments. It’s about taking a step back in those moments and realizing that over a course of a season, we are going to be the best in the long run if I’m focused on what I need to do to have success and not chasing hits in certain moments.”

Bell thinks the key to achieving that consistency is to get back in a groove of synching up his timing with fastballs. Bell recalled that when he was on fire early last season, that’s what he was doing particularly well. And when pitchers caught on to that, he started seeing more breaking balls.

In his words, he got “too competitive” in that regard and tried to time his swing off the breaking balls as well. And that’s where he started to break down.

Last week, Shelton echoed that theory when I asked him what tends to get Bell into a funk.

“It’s just timing,” Shelton said. “It’s not really a mechanical breakdown of the swing. It’s not being in a position to hit.”

That also falls in line with Bell’s previously stated belief that his swing technique is fine, even if to the average eye it looks like he has a lot of motion and preload. Rather, it’s his timing that tends to get out of whack long before his mechanics.

Bell is renowned as a guy who studies extensively. Who tinkers. A player who would tweak and analyze even after gameday batting practice just to get loose.

Shelton said Bell can continue to analyze on a microscopic level. But he also feels Bell has a better sense that he simply possesses the unique size, strength and ability to lace the ball all over the park from both sides of the plate.

And just defaulting to that ain’t a bad thing sometimes.

This season is only 60 games. So maybe Bell — whether white hot or ice cold — should just fall back on that approach now more than ever.

Otherwise, this short season is suddenly going to feel awfully long. For Bell, and the whole team.

Tuesday’s topic: How big of an impact will Jake Guentzel’s return have on the Penguins?