Tyler Chatwood entered the 2019 spring training as one of the biggest question marks on the Chicago Cubs. Chatwood shined in his second straight outing on Wednesday afternoon in the Cubs' latest win over the Kansas City Royals. While baseball purists the world over are going to say that Spring Training simply isn't something you can base regular season performances on there are a couple of Cubbies that would love to be able to build their regular season performance off a great spring training.

The Chicago Cubs and their reclamation projects

Two of the pitchers that are looking to have a bounce-back season pitched on Wednesday against the Kansas City Royals.

Jose Quintana started the game for Chicago and showed that he is still plenty sharp this spring. Quintana has had one and a half up and down seasons for the Cubs since coming over at the trade deadline in 2017. He's hoping 2019 can be the year he finds what he had before coming to the South Side. He had another great Spring outing on Wednesday, throwing three innings, striking out two and allowing just two base runners. He hasn't allowed a run yet this spring.

While the Club would love to see Quintana turn things around, it's Tyler Chatwood that would be the real story, should he manage to fix the mechanical flaws that plagued him in 2018. His first outing of the spring didn't look much different than what Cubs fans saw all of last season until he was abruptly shut down.

Then, something seems to have clicked.

Chatwood has his second straight great outing. This time in relief. He went three innings of shutout ball, allowing just three hits and striking out one. More important than anything else was the fact he didn't walk a single batter. He's now gone six straight innings without allowing a free pass.

That kind of streak, by the way, didn't happen in 2018.

Victor Caratini another comeback kid?

Chatwood and Quintana weren't the only "reclamation projects" who played on Wednesday. Backup catcher Victor Caratini has largely been a disappointment to Chicago Cubs fans since being called up late in 2017.

The backup catcher had a pretty terrible 2018 season.

That was in large part thanks to a very low slugging percentage from a player that was thought to be a slugger when he was tooling about in the minors. He's had a decent spring so far and Caratini hit his first homer of the Cactus League on Wednesday.

None of the numbers posted against the Royals will carry over to the regular season. The Chicago Cubs don't get extra wins because they are reeling off victories in March. Still, for a team that has said again and again that the current roster is good enough to take the franchise back to the World Series, the front office has to like seeing the resident question marks perform at the level they are currently performing.
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