Philadelphia, meanwhile, keeps rolling under Don Mattingly, who took over on an interim basis back in April and has the Phillies playing noticeably better baseball than the team that got Rob Thomson fired. They've won 4 straight, they're clinging to a share of the top NL Wild Card spot, and Nola — for all the damage done to his season numbers — has looked like a different pitcher his last several times out.
Both clubs are playing with a division race they can't fully control. Philadelphia is chasing Atlanta in the NL East but has wild-card cushion behind it; Arizona is fighting to hold onto the last NL Wild Card spot with San Diego breathing down its neck. That's the kind of margin where a series like this one, unremarkable on paper, actually moves a September standings page.
Whichever way the pitching matchup breaks, the stakes are real on both sides of the diamond. A stretch of .500 baseball here is a real problem for either team with the schedule tightening up in September, and neither the Phillies nor the Diamondbacks look built to just shrug one off.