If Game 2 had been scored like a boxing match, this would probably be the start of a preview and not a recap. Houston’s entire advantage resided in the arm of Hunter Brown, so naturally seven of the first nine White Sox batters reached safely against him, five via base hits, chasing the Astros ace from the game. They collected just three hits after that point, and wound up putting zeroes on the scoreboard seven times. For the majority of the game, White Sox hitters flailed at bad pitches and worked themselves into deep holes. Their pitchers couldn’t locate a fastball. At no point did either four-run lead feel safe. But in the end, when it was time to clean up and turn out the lights, they’d scored more runs.

At times, it felt as though the Astros were wearing the wrong uniforms; you kept expecting to see the incomplete gold stars and navy-dominated 2000s aesthetic. It was baseball out of time. Despite the pitch clock the game dragged interminably, as pitchers often missed the zone badly, and hitters, particularly the White Sox, chased after them with ugly, brutish hacks. There was no tension, no sense of momentum, just killing and being killed in turn. The home crowd, made self-aware by the comments of Bennett Sousa and Christian Walker, was openly hostile early, then brashly exaggerated with every subsequent fly ball, as if they were trying to do the work of carrying the team themselves, out of spite. Sean Burke dominated the Astros lineup, except for the batters who dominated him. He struck out eight and allowed three home runs. It felt more like a drinking game than a demonstration of athletic prowess, and both teams took turns reeling.