CHICAGO -- During his days as a manager with the Tampa Bay Rays, Joe Maddon grew accustomed to winning games with pitching and defense. As for the offense, let’s just say it couldn’t be relied on daily.

“Whenever we had five runs, I looked up and I said, ‘We’ve got five runs,’” he recalled of his time with the Rays. “It was like, ‘Whoa.’”

Lately, Maddon probably has been saying "whoa" a lot, but for completely different reasons. His Chicago Cubs team is racking up runs -- and wins -- at a ridiculous rate. The Cubs’ offense pounded out eight runs on 12 hits to overcome a rare shaky performance by the pitching staff in an 8-7 victory over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night to extend their winning streak to eight games. At 25-6, Chicago has the best record in the major leagues and is averaging better than six runs a game.

The Cubs had a potent offense a year ago, in Maddon’s first season with the team, but the manager believes his young hitters -- with the addition of savvy veteran Ben Zobrist, who went 4-for-4 on Tuesday -- are finding ways to score besides hitting the ball out of the park.

Addison Russell drove in three runs as the Cubs' lineup powered the team to an eighth straight win. Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

“We hit line drives, we had base hits all over the place,” he said of Tuesday’s game. “That’s the difference between last year and this year regarding scoring runs. We’re really good at moving the baseball right now.

“When you’re able to give up seven and win, it’s a pretty good thing.”

Besides Zobrist (who now has a hit in eight straight games), Addison Russell had two hits and three runs batted in, Kris Bryant had two RBIs and Javier Baez added a couple of hits.

Jon Lester (4-1) benefited from the offense on a night when he said he didn’t have a good feel on the mound. But his line (three runs on four hits in six innings) was enough.

“These young guys have had a year,” Lester said of the hitters. “I feel like last year they got a little bit exposed as the year went on, just with swings and misses and strikeouts. But I feel like this year these guys are feeling a lot more comfortable and having good at-bats, and not swinging and missing as much as they did last year.”

The scary thing -- at least perhaps from the viewpoint of an opposing pitcher -- is the Cubs players don’t believe the offense has peaked.

“We haven’t even gotten [Jason Heyward] going, and some of these guys haven’t done all they can,” Zobrist said. “We feel like there’s more there.”

That remains to be seen, but one certainty is that the Cubs players don’t plan on trying to put their historic start -- fourth team to win at least 25 of its first 31 games within the past 70 seasons -- into perspective right now.

“The time we stop and have a powwow about it is the time we start losing,” Zobrist said. “We just have to stay in the moment.”

As for Maddon, the winning streak has created a headache for him. His top relievers are overworked, and now he has to try to piece together a bullpen for Wednesday’s doubleheader.

“The fact, that we’ve won so many games lately and these guys have participated, you’re gonna get a fatigued bullpen,” he said. “We have to keep an eye on that.”

It’s doubtful any of his peers are feeling sorry for Maddon, though.