Chicago strolls into loanDepot Park with a playoff spot in hand and a bullpen that keeps threatening to blow it; Miami's still mathematically alive and has no choice but to keep winning. Sunday's series finale closes out a three-game set that hasn't started yet.
Neither club has named a starter for the day-game finale, and it's not hard to see why the picture stays fluid: Chicago is easing Justin Steele back with a Triple-A Iowa rehab assignment and has Edward Cabrera working through a blister on a throwing program, so the members of the rotation just outside the front line are still question marks. Whoever ends up on the mound for both sides, first pitch is locked for 1:40 PM ET on Sunday, September 6.
The injury sheets matter more than usual here. Chicago is already without shortstop Dansby Swanson (oblique) and has been playing second base short-handed with Pedro Ramirez out, while Miami is missing 2B Xavier Edwards after a hand injury suffered colliding at second base, and both Anthony Bender and Pete Fairbanks are still working back from the bullpen. That's two rosters patched together heading into a series that could still swing the market by the time this one actually gets played.
None of the board is live yet, and there's a reason for that: Chicago hosts Milwaukee once more and Miami closes out at Kansas City before these two ever see each other, and then this pair still plays twice more before Sunday. A lot can happen to both bullpens between now and then.
Chicago's the better team on paper and it isn't close on the scoreboard, either — a 17-5 laugher over Cincinnati and a 17-3 blowout of Milwaukee sit right next to a pair of losses in that same stretch, which is the story of this Cubs team: capable of burying anybody, capable of getting buried right back the next night. Miami's been the steadier of the two lately, taking both meetings with Kansas City to close out August.
The bigger issue for Chicago isn't the lineup, it's who's throwing the ball late. Jacob Webb — the Cubs' most trusted arm out of the pen — blew a save and took a loss in a 5-4 defeat to Arizona just this week, and Chicago's bullpen has been bleeding home runs at a rate that's among the worst in the sport this season. Miami's still fighting for a wild-card lifeline with a tough closing schedule ahead, and every one of these head-to-head games matters more to them than it does to a Cubs club that already has its October ticket mostly punched.
