None of that has a price on it yet — three days out, there's no line posted for this one, which leaves plenty of runway for either injury report to move whatever number eventually goes up.
What's not in question is the shape of these two seasons. The Marlins sit at 68-68, capable of taking a series behind Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez at the top of the order and just as capable of getting run out of the building the next night. They swept a series from Washington earlier this month, then turned around and dropped the first two of a return set against the same Nationals — the kind of split that's defined their year: never quite enough to climb, never quite enough to fold.
Kansas City's story is the stranger one. A team sitting at 62-75 has won 3 straight and 4 of its last 5 as this goes to press, the tail end of a stretch that included a 9-game winning streak this month — the Royals' longest since 2017 — before Toronto snapped it. FanGraphs still pegs Kansas City's playoff odds at around 1%, so this isn't really about October. It's a young core proving something in September, and it still has a stop in Cleveland and the opener of this very series against Miami to get through before Wednesday.
The two teams open this set before Wednesday's game even happens, so whatever shape the series takes is still unwritten. What's already certain is that both bullpens will be running thinner by the time it does.