Two years ago the White Sox lost 121 games. On Wednesday they finished off the Houston Astros 7-3 and won a playoff series, their first since the 2005 World Series, which they also won against Houston. The franchise has now beaten the same opponent in its last two series victories, with twenty-one years of silence in between.

That is a long time to wait for a sequel. It is also a short time to go from the record books' basement to the bracket. Losing 121 games is a feat of sustained commitment. Teams do not stumble into it. They arrive at it by the dozen, night after night, with a straight face. Chicago did it, and two seasons later it swept a playoff series.

The Astros did not so much lose as get ushered out. They were the team with the October résumé, the one other clubs studied for how to stay good for years, and they went down in two games to a club that had been a punchline in the same calendar decade. Baseball's postseason is a short series built to humiliate favorites, and Houston has now donated its time to the cause.

The Yankees did their part elsewhere, finishing the sweep of Boston with a 9-2 rout and moving on to the ALDS. That one belongs to the big-market side of the ledger, where winning in October is an expectation and a payroll line. Chicago's win belongs to the other side, where it arrives like a clerical error in the universe's favor.

Cowboys fans got their own news in the middle of the night: Dallas has agreed to trade a 2027 sixth-round pick and a 2028 second-rounder to Pittsburgh for cornerback Joey Porter Jr., according to ESPN's sources. It is a second-round pick for a corner. Nobody in Chicago would have called that a bargain in 2024. Then again, nobody in Chicago would have called a series win a possibility.

Houston will spend the winter explaining how a 121-loss team did this. Chicago will spend it enjoying the question.