Cubs’ 15th win has Chicago on top of baseball world

CHICAGO — Addison Russell smacked a tiebreaking, two-run triple with two outs in the sixth inning and Anthony Rizzo drove in his team-leading 22nd run with a double to lift the Cubs to a 4-3 victory over the Brewers on Tuesday night. With the win, the Cubs improved to 15-5, their best start since the 1907 team began 16-4.

The cold and Milwaukee’s Jimmy Nelson helped to stymie the Cubs, who began the night averaging 6.26 runs per game, tops in the Majors.

With the game tied at 1 in the Chicago sixth, Kris Bryant reached on a fielding error by third baseman Aaron Hill. One out later, Ben Zobrist walked to chase Nelson, and Carlos Torres got Jorge Soler to fly out to right. Russell then tripled into the gap in right-center, and now has 10 RBIs in his last 12 games.

“He’s not afraid of that moment,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said of Russell. “He hits that gap in big moments, that right-central gap. … A big part of what you’re seeing now is that he’s swinging at better pitches.”

The Brewers’ bench got its hopes up for all of a few seconds in the ninth, when Hill blasted a ball to deep left field with two outs and a runner on. With the cold wind blowing in, the ball turned into a game-ending out at the warning track.

“That ball, it seemed like it was behind the fence and it came back,” Brewers center fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis said. “I thought it was gone.”

Both starting pitchers, Nelson and Chicago’s Kyle Hendricks, wore short sleeves despite a game-time temperature of 40 degrees, which felt more like 34 because of the brisk 16-mph northerly wind. Some players tucked hand warmers into their pockets, some wore balaclavas, and many stayed close to the heaters in the dugout. Cubs closer Hector Rondon, who picked up his fourth save, said he couldn’t feel his hands.

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