Piniella's short-rest decision on Zambrano short-circuits in seventh

PHOENIX -- Look out. Now we've seen everything. The end of the baseball world as we know it might be at hand. Duck if the thunder rolls in.

The Chicago Cubs lost a playoff game on Wednesday night because they were ... (pause here to clear throat) ... because they were ... (pause here to stifle chuckle) ... because they were. ... ahem:

Lou Piniella might not like the questions, but his decision might haunt him until spring training. (US Presswire)

Yes. The Chicago Cubs, who haven't played in a World Series since 1945 and who haven't captured a Fall Classic since 1908, had one eye on Game 4 as they dropped Game 1 of their divisional series with Arizona 3-1.

Opting to go with a three-man rotation in this series, manager Lou Piniella pulled ace Carlos Zambrano after six innings and 85 pitches in an attempt to keep him fresh for a short-rest start on Sunday.

It was 1-1 when Zambrano left. Enter Carlos Marmol, and four pitches later, ka-boom! Mark Reynolds re-directed a 95 mph fastball over the left-field fence, and the Diamondbacks would never trail again.

Afterward, Piniella, who blamed the loss on scoring only one run (the Cubs left nine runners aboard and were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position), was in no mood for dissecting when the discussion turned toward whether he could be accused of looking ahead in this series.

"I'm not accused of anything, sir," Piniella said. "I've got a good bullpen here, OK, and I trust my bullpen. I'm bringing back a pitcher on three days' rest Sunday, and I took a shot with my bullpen. It didn't work today.

"They've done it all year. I've got confidence in them, period, end of story."

It would be the end of story, of course, if Marmol had been nails, the Cubs had scored and, bada-bing, they were up one game in this series.

"If Marmol shuts them out in the seventh, it would be, 'What a great move, getting Zambrano out before he was tired,'" Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said. "Nah, that's baseball.

"Reynolds hit a 95 mph fastball. You've still got to hit it."

Instead, this is what the post-Steve Bartman Cubs looked like in their first foray back into October since that fateful fall of 2003, when they were within five outs of a National League pennant before blowing it to Florida.