Cubs quickly pushed to brink

PHOENIX -- Carlos Zambrano leaned on the railing at the front of the dugout, cap in hand and head bowed.

The Chicago Cubs were being pounded, well on their way to an 8-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night at Chase Field that would cause them to fall behind 2-0 in the National League division series.

One more loss and the Cubs’ Sisyphean task of winning a World Series will be put off to next season, when the Curse of the Billy Goat will turn a century old. And if that loss comes in Game 3 Saturday at Wrigley Field, Zambrano won’t pitch again in a postseason during which he has thrown only 85 pitches.

Cubs starter Ted Lilly was as wild as Zambrano was exact in Game 1, when the $91.5-million pitcher was pulled after six innings of one-run ball so he could come back on three days’ rest to pitch in a Game 4 that might not be played.

Lilly threw 79 pitches over 3 1/3 laborious innings, giving up six runs and seven hits, including a three-run home run to rookie Chris Young in the second inning that put the Cubs in a 3-2 hole from which they never climbed out. Second-year shortstop Stephen Drew blew the game open in the fourth with a two-run triple that put the Diamondbacks ahead, 6-2.

Left-hander Doug Davis had his own troubles, but they weren’t of enough gravity to prevent him from beating Lilly for the second time this season. Davis gave up four runs and five hits in 5 2/3 innings before turning the ball over to the Diamondbacks’ bullpen.

Lilly threw 25 pitches in the first inning, 12 of them balls, though he struck out Mark Reynolds with men on the corners to escape the inning unscathed.

But Lilly couldn’t hold the lead given to him by Geovany Soto’s two-run homer in the top of the second, as he gave up a lead-off single in the bottom of the inning to Chris Snyder, then walked Justin Upton.

There were two outs when Young came to the plate, but with the count 3-2, Lilly served up a letter-high fastball that was decked midway up the left-field stands. Seeing the ball sail across the domed stadium, Lilly removed his glove and slammed it on the mound.

Drew followed with a single and was driven in on a triple by Eric Byrnes, who came within a foot of also clearing the left-field wall.

Drew’s triple two innings later marked the end of Lilly’s night.

A line-drive single by Augie Ojeda in the fifth not only extended the Diamondbacks’ lead to 7-2, but struck the pitching hand of Scott Eyre and forced him to leave the game. The onslaught continued with Michael Wuertz on the mound, as a squeeze bunt by Davis scored Upton.

Thursday’s result probably will intensify the questioning of Manager Lou Piniella’s decision the previous evening to remove Zambrano with the score tied 1-1 at the start of the seventh inning. Asked about the move, Piniella seemed amused.

“I’m not irritated,” Piniella said. “I might get a little animated, but I understand. I’ve been doing this a long time. When you’re a major-league manager, what it amounts to is you manage a ballgame for 2 1/2 hours and it takes almost that long to explain what . . . you do. That’s the way it is.”

He stood firm behind his decision to hand the ball to the 24-year old Carlos Marmol, who had an earned-run average of 1.43 in the regular season.

“How many people wanted me to close with Marmol?” Piniella asked. “I bring in Marmol, it’s like the goat left his grave, like Leo Durocher turned in his grave. I mean, for God’s sake, it’s only Game 1. We’ve got a five-game series.”

Even without Piniella alluding to it, talk of the goat and curses has been unavoidable for the Cubs.

“Obviously, you’re going to get that,” Derrek Lee said. “It’s something that we have no control over.”

Earlier in the week, Soto gave what amounted to an admission that he believed the Cubs were cursed.

“One tries not to think of that,” Soto said. “But the reality is that we have that on our mind.”

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com