The Red Sox (39-17) turn to the unreliable Drew Pomeranz (xx) tonight in Texas when they face the World Series champion Astros (35-22) tonight in Houston (8:10 p.m., NESN, MLBN out-of-market). These are some big games. Read Matt’s series preview here.

About tonight’s game: Pomeranz will likely be pitching to justify his spot in the rotation against the historically good Astros offense. No pressure! He’ll face Lance McCullers Jr. (6-3, 3.98 ERA), who’s only a soft matchup grading on Houston’s insane curve. This isn’t a great showdown for the Sox on paper, but games aren’t played on paper. They’re played on Twitter.

Unfortunately for Boston, Mookie Betts won’t suit up... again, which might be worse news against Houston than it was against Toronto. Andrew Benintendi’s hitting first again and Dustin Pedroia’s back at second and batting fifth. Brock Holt’s in right field, which is different.

About yesterday’s game: Eduardo Rodriguez was electric but for one pitch, J.D. Martinez hit it a mile and Craig Kimbrel held on to a wobbly 6-4 victory to finish the Toronto sweep. Read my recap here.

Forecast: 90 degrees at game time. I don’t know if that means they close the roof, but I doubt it for a night game.

Today’s reading: NO TIME!

A good tweet from yesterday:

LINEUPS