A year and a half ago the White Sox were the worst team in modern baseball history. Now they're on the road at Houston playing a game that actually means something, and nobody quite knows what to do with that sentence. The Astros have been the standard in the AL for the better part of a decade, the team other franchises measure themselves against. The White Sox, until very recently, were the team other franchises used to feel better about themselves.
That gap is what makes this series worth watching. Every White Sox win right now gets treated like evidence in a bigger case: is this a real team or a mirage that shows up against the wrong opponent at the wrong time. Houston is about as tough a test as the schedule offers, a team built to expose exactly the kind of roster that was 121 losses from irrelevant not long ago.
None of that decides tonight. It just raises the price of finding out. White Sox or Astros, moneyline, straight up.