Arizona is walking a tightrope right now. Ketel Marte, Tommy Troy and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. are all out of the lineup, and the rotation behind Pfaadt is basically held together with tape — Zac Gallen, Ryne Nelson, Corbin Burnes and Blake Walston are all on the 60-day IL, and Michael Soroka just went back down again. Chicago's not exactly flush either, but its offense has been doing the heavy lifting lately.
The Cubs took the series opener 7-0 and come in having outscored their last two opponents 26-2, a stretch that includes a 19-run beatdown of Seattle. That kind of offensive burst matters more than usual right now, because Chicago's bullpen has been gutted by injury — Porter Hodge, Cade Horton, Hunter Harvey, Riley Martin, Ben Brown, Phil Maton, Gavin Hollowell, Shelby Miller and Hoby Milner are all currently unavailable in some form. Craig Counsell has been forced to lean on whoever's healthy, and that's a real vulnerability even for a team sitting atop the Wild Card race.
Arizona's pitching depth is in an even rougher spot, but the Diamondbacks aren't dead in this race — they've won 3 of their last 5 and just took 2 of 3 from Cincinnati before Chicago blanked them in the opener. Pfaadt is the one healthy anchor keeping this rotation from total collapse, and a strong response start would go a long way toward steadying a clubhouse that's watched injury after injury pile up this month.
This is exactly the kind of August series that decides Wild Card seeding more than it looks like on paper — neither team is fully healthy, both are scoreboard-watching, and the margin between staying in the race and fading out of it keeps shrinking with every series like this one.