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Pittsburgh Pirates Josh Bell celebrates his Grand Slam against the Cubs in the 5th inning at PNC Park.
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Josh Bell will get some work in the outfield

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Josh Bell will get some work in the outfield

WASHINGTON — General manager Neal Huntington spoke to the media before today’s game at Nationals Park. Here are some of the highlights.

On Josh Bell working in the outfield...

“It’ll be just a refresher. He’s very comfortable in the outfield, in fact he ran around the other day here in right field as we were working through when and if Gregory [Polanco’s] going to be ready to go. With what he’s done offensively with the number of years, the number of balls he’s taken in the outfield, we felt that he could be a very good fallback choice for us if there were an injury or something happened at the major league level and we needed another outfielder.

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“To be able to open another door for Josh to be able to help this club, we thought it’d be worthwhile to give him an outfielder’s glove again. Probably just one day a week if that in the outfield because we still have work to be done at first base, and as you look at this club going forward, first base seems to be the most viable option down the road, with Polanco, [Starling] Marte and [Andrew] McCutchen under contract for a handful of years.

The Pirates' Starling Marte, right, rounds the bases after he hit a home run off Nationals relief pitcher Oliver Perez on Sunday. The Pirates won 2-1 in 18 innings.
Bill Brink
Pirates report card: July 11-17, 2016

On Polanco’s hamstring and deciding not to put him on the DL ...

“We didn’t feel like playing short for Saturday and Sunday was incredibly hurtful to us. … We felt the upside to getting Gregory back on Tuesday versus losing him for the rest of the DL period was worth that chance to take. We are optimistic that Gregory will be ready to go on Tuesday.”

On Francisco Cervelli, who will return to Pittsburgh Monday but not necessarily to be activated ...

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“Two good offensive games, he’s handled the staff well, he’s moved well. We want to have a conversation with him to see where he feels he is at this point in time, offensively, defensively, where his legs are.”

On looking for rotation help ...

“You continue to look externally, but your bar’s set fairly high in terms of what your acquisition needs to be. That acquisition comes with an extreme acquisition cost. We will weigh, are we better going with our own guys, is there something that makes sense from the outside, and that will play out over the next couple of weeks.”

On not signing Nick Lodolo ...

“At the end of the day, what we offered wasn’t enough. … We wish him nothing but the best. We knew there was a risk when we selected him.”

On what the Drew Pomeranz trade says about the trade market for starters ...

“Pomeranz obviously has had three very good years, mostly out of the bullpen. A very good first half as a starter, and San Diego did a terrific job of turning that into a, some fee, top-20 prospect in the game [Anderson Espinosa]. It reminds us that it’s a seller’s market and the acquisition costs are going to be steep. Years of control matter. It’s part of the reason why they were able to secure such a quality prospect, in our minds, was the multiple years of control that Pomeranz brings with him. And it also reminds us that it’s really important to develop your own pitching.

“We’re doing our due diligence really on all fronts, but the pitching group is a group that seems to need the most help at this point in time, unless we’re willing to go with what we have internally.

On the Jung Ho Kang investigation ...

“It’s a situation that the Chicago police are working through their process, Major League Baseball will work through their process and we’ll take ours from there.”

First Published: July 17, 2016, 6:31 p.m.

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Pittsburgh Pirates Josh Bell celebrates his Grand Slam against the Cubs in the 5th inning at PNC Park.  (Peter Diana/Post-Gazette)
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