Chicago Cubs outfielder Heyward returns sooner than he expected

Jason Heyward had his right wrist taped Thursday, but he headed out to the field to take batting practice.

The Chicago Cubs right fielder said he might be able to start Friday against the Washington Nationals, but he returned sooner than expected as he replaced Dexter Fowler in the fourth inning of Thursday's game after Fowler was ejected for arguing a called third strike to end the third.

Heyward missed all three games this week at Pittsburgh, the result of lingering soreness in the wrist. He said he first suffered the ailment swinging the bat in the cage during the early-April series at Arizona.

"I'm feeling a lot better," said Heyward, who entered Thursday 0-for-17 over his last four games. "I'm going to push myself by taking a lot of swings in the cage, do a lot on the field BP-wise, get after it. I should get pretty good feedback to day and see how I feel after the game."

Bullpen roster move:

The Cubs placed relief pitcher Neil Ramirez on the bereavement list and recalled pitcher Spencer Patton from Class AAA Iowa. A player can be on the bereavement list for a minimum of three days and maximum of seven. Ramirez left the club because of the death of his grandmother.

Patton worked 10 scoreless innings in 10 games with 4 saves in as many chances at Iowa.

Always a party:

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, Joe Maddon had a mariachi band serenading the Cubs in the clubhouse before batting practice.

"Good vibe going," said catcher David Ross. "Before you guys got in here, we had some 'Tequila' going - the song."

Ben Zobrist played for Maddon in Tampa Bay and has seen this before.

"It was in 2012 or something," he said. "We had a mariachi band come after an extra-inning loss, if you can believe it"

Then and now:

Nationals manager Dusty Baker led the Cubs from 2003-06. He said he likes this year's version of the Cubs.

"I haven't really seen them, but I know that they have more depth than we had," Baker said. "They have a better bullpen than we had then, which is no consolation, but that's why I had to stretch out my starters longer than even I wanted to, because we didn't have the bullpen they have now, not saying we didn't have a good bullpen."