Cubs tie 1907 club for franchise's hottest start

The Chicago Cubs haven't been this hot in more than a century.

With an 8-7 victory over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday - fueled by a 4-for-4 night from Ben Zobrist and a pair of extra-base hits from Addison Russell - the Cubs, at 25-6, matched the 1907 club for the best start in franchise history.

In addition to tying the franchise's high-water mark from 109 years ago - that club, by the way, went on to win the World Series - the Cubs are also off to the best start of any team since 1984, and are one of only eight clubs in the last 100 seasons to win at least 25 of their first 31 contests.

"You can't stay this hot all year long," Zobrist told MLB.com after helping his club extend their winning to streak to eight games. "It's such a long season, and we know we're going to have down points. It's the ability to pick each other up, and this team, so far, you've got contributions from everybody, all around the clubhouse, up and down the lineup, every pitcher, every reliever, everybody's contributing in some way. I think the confidence as a team is just super high because of that."

Still, though his club boasts an MLB-best plus-101 run differential and an 8 1/2-game lead atop the National League Central, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein won't let the accolades pouring in at the moment stop him from being proactive about issues destined to arise later in the season.

"We almost throw out everything that has happened so far," Epstein told Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. "We are on such a roll that we probably spend more time looking ahead to the inevitable challenging periods when we're short-handed and strapped, and things aren't breaking our way. (We're) trying to get ahead and figure out how we're going to deal with that adversity.''