hitting Wednesday."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Chicago Cubs recapsChicago Cubs minor leaguesChicago Cubs essaysChicago Cubs game threadsWrigley Field renovationsFull archiveLibrary Bleed Cubbie Blue Community GuidelinesCurrent time in ChicagoBCB Specials & Site InfoWinter 2019 music threadsCubs StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Cubs newsYahoo Cubs team pageYahoo Cubs reportYahoo Cubs depth chartYahoo Cubs transactionsYahoo Cubs photosOdds Shop About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHubicago Cubs recapsChicago Cubs spring trainingCubs 4 Dustin McGowan Jersey , Royals 1: Jose Quintana and Tyler Chatwood (yes, Tyler Chatwood!) impressNew,98commentsThe Cubs got outstanding pitching and timely hitting Wednesday.CSTShareTweetShareShareCubs 4, Royals 1: Jose Quintana and Tyler Chatwood (yes, Tyler Chatwood!) impressMatt Kartozian-USA TODAY SportsMESA, Arizona — The Cubs defeated the Royals 4-1 on what was the warmest afternoon of 2019 so far in the Valley of the Sun, 80 degrees, and the latter fact is meaningful, as it’s the first 80-degree day of the spring. Usually there are a couple in February.That’s not what’s important here, just thought I’d note how nice a day it was. What’s important is the pitching performances of Jose Quintana and, even more importantly, Tyler Chatwood.Quintana threw the first three innings and was very, very good. He walked one and allowed one hit, but got out of the inning with the hit on a nicely-executed double play. So he faced just 10 hitters and looked really, really sharp. That’s two good outings in a row for Q and I think he’s primed to have a big year.Chatwood, though... well, you know the issues he’s had. None of that was in evidence at all in his three-inning stint that resulted in a save, for whatever that’s worth. He didn’t walk anyone. No, I am not making that up. No walks, and in fact, only one three-ball count, in facing 10 hitters over three innings. He did give up three hits, but induced a pair of double-play balls. His velocity was consistent at 94 and he hit 95 a couple of times on the Sloan Park pitch speed meter. Here’s video of Chatwood pitching on Wednesday:You can see http://www.raysfanproshop.com/authentic-evan-longoria-jersey , even from those two pitches, that he’s not opening up as wide in his motion as he did last year. This motion seems much more controlled. He’s throwing more strikes and inducing more ground balls. It’s early, but if he keeps this up I think there could be a place for him in the Opening Day bullpen. This is so good to see — a guy who struggled so much in 2018 has obviously put a lot of both physical and mental work into his game and you can see the improvement on the field. I’m rooting for him, it would not only help the team but would be a great redemption story.Offensively, the Cubs pushed across a run in the second on a double by Daniel Descalso and single by Johnny Field, another in the third when Descalso got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, and the third run was this leadoff homer by Victor Caratini in the sixth, his first of the spring:Pedro Strop made his first appearance of the spring and should have been out of the inning after allowing a single and recording two outs. He (and everyone else on the team and in the stands) thought he had Frank Schwindel struck out on a 2-2 pitch, but plate umpire Rob Drake called ball three. Strop walked Schwindel and then was removed, likely for a pitch count. I thought it was a successful outing anyway. Mike Zagurski entered and allowed a run-scoring single, the only K.C. run of the day, charged to Strop.Brad Brach also made his spring, and Cubs, debut, throwing a scoreless sixth after a leadoff double. With Brach’s illness delaying his first spring outing, the Cubs are likely to bring him along slowly. And — speculating a bit here — with the Cubs having other choices (such as Chatwood, perhaps) for the pen, and with Brach having several roster bonus clauses, it’s entirely possible he starts the year on the injured list.Steve Cishek also threw a scoreless frame, after doing his usual run in from the pen.All in all, it was a successful afternoon from every standpoint for the Cubs, I thought.Attendance watch: 12,036 paid to see this one Adeiny Hechavarria Jersey , which makes the season total for eight dates 89,831, or 11,229 per date. (Did I mention it was a gorgeous day?)The Cubs will host the Rockies at Sloan Park Thursday afternoon at 2:05 p.m. CT. Jon Lester will start for the Cubs — I’d expect him to go into the fourth inning — and Antonio Senzatela starts for Colorado. No TV Thursday, there will be the usual audio webcast on cubs.com. Caleb Joseph signed with the Diamondbacks, and so another link to the recent great Orioles teams is gone."The Orioles parted ways with Caleb Joseph last November when they did not tender him a 2019 contract. Until he signed elsewhere, there was some slim hope for a reunion. On Wednesday, he got the MLB contract he wanted, inking a deal with the Diamondbacks. With his departure, one more link to the great 2012-14 Orioles is severed. Only Chris Davis remains from the 2014 division winners.There was just something special about that team. We can only hope to get to see another Orioles team that’s special in a different way some time in the future. The blend of personalities, of stars, of unlikely performers and characters on the fringes, it all made for a magic ride, worth fondly remembering all the more with the current state of the team. The good times were never guaranteed. As fans, we’re lucky we got them for as long as we did.Joseph was an easy person to root for almost as soon as he was drafted by the Orioles in the seventh round of the 2008 draft out of Lipscomb University in his home state of Tennessee. At the time, any catcher entering the system was naturally buried behind can’t-miss mega-prospect Matt Wieters. Joseph, in an interview that’s been lost to the depths of the Internet but never forgotten in my memory, addressed that with charming self-deprecation: “Somebody has to be Matt Wieters’s backup.”Somebody did. That somebody was not Joseph, at least not initially. The Orioles left him buried at Double-A Bowie from 2010-13 in favor of seldom-used backups while Wieters played at practically ironman levels - for a catcher. Even once Joseph’s bat seemed to come alive after a few chances at the level, including a 22 home run season in 2013, the O’s brain trust of the time gave Joseph little credit as part of a solution even on a backup basis. There were vague statements about his defense holding him back.In the 2014 season, opportunity finally arrived. When Wieters turned out to need Tommy John surgery in early May, the Orioles turned to Joseph to be part of the stopgap solution. At the age of 27 Sergio Romo Jersey , six years after being drafted, deep enough into a minor league career to think about giving up on baseball, Joseph got his chance as an MLB player.A dispassionate observer looking at Joseph’s final 2014 season batting line would surely think me crazy to have any fond feeling for a player who batted .207/.264/.354 across his debut season. It’s nothing special to look at, and it’s not even like Joseph started off hot to make a great first impression, because at the end of his first month, he sported a .251 OPS.The minor league toiling seemed to have paid off in one way: Joseph developed defensively, enough that the O’s decided to roll with him as the starter even if he wasn’t hitting much. The starting rotation was mostly thriving and the team was winning games. Joseph’s bat came alive eventually, with a streak of five straight games with a home run in early August. The fifth of those games was the Orioles 60th anniversary celebration, when the O’s blew out the Cardinals, 10-3 and for one night it seemed like the most natural thing in the world that the Orioles were going to go on and win the World Series that year.From his antics impersonating coaches and managers to his fondness for air-drumming and high-fiving nonexistent fans in the empty stadium on the day the Orioles played in the aftermath of the 2015 riots in Baltimore, it was just hard not to like the guy. This is a different kind of like than what you might have for a perennial All-Star player on your favorite team.In a “Fact or Fiction” Jumbotron segment, one fact turned out to be that Joseph was in an art class in high school with Kesha. He deadpanned, “She was better than I was.” This fact delights me to this day. So did Joseph’s standard line after getting a big hit: “Kid’s gotta eat.”When Joseph had struggles, like in 2016 when he landed on the disabled list with testicular torsion in the midst of a season where he ultimately batted in zero runs in 49 games, you had to feel for him as well. That is not the kind of history that any fan wanted any Orioles player to make.Joseph may well have provided the saddest anecdote about the dismantling of the Orioles last July, as well. In an ESPN article from September, he described the aftermath of the trades from the perspective of his three-year-old son: “My kid (Walker) was the only one in child care. He lost his friends. ... (He’s) asking, ‘Where’s (Manny Machado’s wife) Yainee? Where’s Yainee?’” Even thinking about this today is bumming me out. Moving along.Any baseball player who makes it to MLB is better at baseball than you or I will ever be at any job, but as much as someone who’s at that level is capable of being one, Joseph just seemed like an everyman kind of guy. That’s as Birdland as it gets.The good players are gone, and the fun players like Joseph are gone too. If the season plays out in such a way that the Diamondbacks end up as contenders, it will be easy to hope for them to have some success as long as Joseph is a part of it.Caleb was drafted. He played. He is Birdland. We may never see his like again.