Without best sinker, Webb handcuffs Cubs in Game 1

D'backs ace Brandon Webb bent but did not break in his first career postseason start. Jeff Gross/Getty Images

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PHOENIX -- It's almost unfair that, even when Brandon Webb's notorious sinker isn't sinking as it normally does -- which is to say fall-off-the-table, crash-through-the-plate, excavate-it-in-20-years sinking -- that he has so many other ways to get people out.

That's what we saw Wednesday in Game 1 of the National League Division Series between Webb's Diamondbacks and the Cubs. Webb, as he has done for large parts of the second half of the season, reached back and pulled out a lot of his other "stuff" -- changeups, mainly, and some curveballs, too -- instead of that son-of-a-gun sinker that has won him one Cy Young award and made him into one of the league's best pitchers.

That "stuff" ended up burying the Cubs in a 3-1 win. All in all, it was a wonderful effort from the Kentucky kid making the first postseason start of his career.

"My offspeed pitches were as good as I've had them probably this year," Webb said in his postgame press conference. "That's where the big outs came from. A lot."

Webb didn't pitch anything close to a great game Wednesday. He was in constant trouble. He had runners on in every one of the first six innings, though the one in the fifth was not of his doing. (Third baseman Mark Reynolds threw away a sinker that Ryan Theriot had driven into the ground.) It wasn't until the seventh -- his last inning, as it turned out -- that Webb blew through an inning 1-2-3.

But that, maybe more than anything, shows how Webb has progressed as a pitcher. He is not a one-pitch pony any more, a thrower who can be had when his No. 1 pitch isn't there. Webb has an entire repertoire of good pitches now, and he's not afraid to use any of them. That helped him put together a string of 42 straight scoreless innings earlier this season, and it helped him win 18 games as he was posting a 3.01 ERA.

"He's always one pitch away," said his manager, Bob Melvin. "And not only does he know it, a lot of times the other team knows it.

"They're always aware of the sinker, and he seems like he has a pretty good timing, along with [catcher Chris Snyder], in recognizing when he needs to use the offspeed stuff."

Perfect example: In the third inning, the ace across the diamond, Chicago's Carlos Zambrano, led off the inning with a double. But Webb got Alfonso Soriano, Jacque Jones and Derrek Lee to strike out, using a fastball on Lee to end the inning.

Another example: In the seventh, with two outs and no one on, Lee struck out swinging at a changeup, the last of Webb's nine strikeouts. Lee was so frustrated that he pounded his bat in anger, not realizing that he should have been running to first because the ball slipped past catcher Snyder. Lee was an easy out at first base.

"If you hear a batter [mumbling] or they throw a bat, I think it does pick you up out there and give you a little more excitement," Webb said. "I saw it a couple times tonight with a few of their hitters, and it really just drives the pitcher that much more."

Maybe the most interesting part of Webb's evening was that, by all accounts, the sinker that he had was pretty effective. Maybe not an A-1 sinker. Maybe not the kind he had when he was throwing three consecutive shutouts earlier this summer. But it was good. He got Soriano to ground out to third baseman Reynolds on the very first pitch of the game. Webb induced eight groundouts to go with his nine strikeouts and four fly balls.

The truth is, Webb didn't get away from the sinker because he had to get away from it. He backed off it because he could.

And that ought to leave a real sinking feeling for the next team that sees him.

Piniella looking ahead?

Cubs manager Lou Piniella's debatable move to pull his starter, Zambrano, after six innings and just one run was ... well, debatable. That's the great thing about the postseason. Everything can be argued and second-guessed.

Piniella said afterward that he wanted to keep Zambrano's pitch count down because he planned on bringing him back on three days rest on Sunday, for Game 4 of this series, in Chicago.

Looking ahead too much?

"I trust my bullpen," Piniella said. "I've got confidence in them. Period. End of the story."

The Cubs' bullpen has been good, and the reliever that Piniella brought in, Carlos Marmol, has been the best of the lot. Unfortunately for Piniella and the Cubs, though, the move simply didn't work. Marmol gave up two runs in the bottom of the seventh, including a solo homer to Reynolds on a 95 mph fastball, that proved to be the difference.

Gutsy on Piniella's part? Stupid? Or just bad luck?

Well, anyone who has watched the Cubs has seen that bullpen shut teams down. Marmol was throwing absolute heat Wednesday. So I have no beef with the decision. If Zambrano pitches deep into Sunday's game, we'll all talk about how smart Piniella was to limit him in Game 1.

But if the Cubs don't make it that far ... well, we'll be second- and third-guessing this move for months to come. Maybe longer.