Epstein tries to keep Chicago Cubs' start in perspective
The Chicago Cubs occupy a lofty perch these days.
That doesn't mean team president Theo Epstein is getting too comfortable up there.
"We're thrilled with the start we've gotten off to, obviously, but we're not blinded by it," he said Tuesday evening, before his team went out and beat the San Diego Padres 8-7 at Wrigley Field. "We know we're in a stretch right now where winning seems far easier than it actually is.
"But we know there's going to be a stretch, probably a long stretch this year, where winning even one game seems virtually impossible. It's just the nature of baseball. We're not blinded by it. We've been saying in the office we're in a tree. We'll stay up there as long as we can. We're going to get down at some point."
The Cubs won their eighth in a row and improved to 25-6 by beating the Padres, the last-place team in the National League West. They did it by surviving an eighth-inning grand slam by the Padres' Alex Dickerson, who brought San Diego within a run.
Most impressive was the Cubs' display leading up to this series, when they swept the Pirates in three at Pittsburgh and the Nationals in four at Wrigley Field.
There always seems to be a sense of fatalism with Cubs fans. Epstein sounded a cautious note, but he didn't sound like that tree branch was about to break.
"Not nervous about it, but experience teaches you to take it with a grain of salt," he said. "This is not baseball reality. Baseball reality is that it's really hard to win a single big-league game. That's why we celebrate them so much.
"Baseball karma is real. When you see some of the stuff written about us in the winter. When you see some of the odds, World Series odds and things like that, for a team is a defending third-place team and hasn't done anything yet and hasn't proven it can accomplish things certain things in back-to-back seasons - we're still I think a losing team during my tenure overall in Chicago - you get uncomfortable because there are teams that have gone out and earned that."
The Cubs staked starting pitcher Jon Lester to an early lead, with a run in the second and 4 in the third. Ben Zobrist and Javier Baez singled with one out in the second. Addison Russell doubled, scoring Zobrist.
The Cubs might have had more had not Russell run into third base with Baez being held there. Russell was tagged out heading back to second.
The Cubs batted around in the third, with 2 coming home on Kris Bryant's double. Melvin Upton homered off Cubs pitcher Jon Lester in the fourth before a single by Zobrist (4-for-4) in the fifth made it 6-1. The Padres scored 2 more in the fifth off Lester, who wound up working 6 innings and giving up 4 hits and 3 runs.
"OK," was how Lester described his stuff. "We had to kind of invent ways to get guys out tonight. Didn't really have anything. Curveball stunk. Cutter was hit or miss."
Russell hit a 2-run triple to the right-field corner in the seventh to give the Cubs some cushion.