Six of eight names have been announced for the 2019 Home Run Derby, to be held next Monday night. The field does not yet include Shohei Ohtani, which isfrankly an outrage. The good news is, the field does include Pirates masher Josh Bell, who is rounding into peak form exactly in time.
Bell delighted the home crowd Monday with quite a show, going 4-for-6 with seven runs batted in and three huge and impressive dingers in an 18–5 destruction of the Chicago Cubs. Bell’s first and third homers of the night were scalded, frightening laser shots; his second was a majestic bomb off an off-speed pitch he golfed out of the bottom of the strike zone:
