Rays vs. Red Sox GDT 1: Matt Moore in insufficient quantities

"We need more Moore." Heflin waved a hand towards Sogal. The engineer hoisted the bucket over his head and emptied its contents into the chute. A single Matt Moore slid into the darkness.

"What was that?"

"That was all we had," Sogal said. "We had only enough for one Matt Moore every five days."

The engine brassled and chucked. A behemoth of jostling and twisting steel clinched and agitated. The captain sprinted to the rusted red levers and threw them back and forth. He stomped the pedals and mashed the buttons. Sogal ran his grimy fingers along the bottom of the Matt Moore bucket, searching for extra Moores.

Atop a green hill, cresting above the quiet patchwork town below, the machine stiffened. It perched, frozen atop the hill. Men and women in the streets below froze too. The machine held motionless, and they watched breathless.

"Is it out of Moores?" A man carrying a loaf of French bread underneath his arm cinched the bread closer to him. The bread made a soft crunching sound.

The machine tumbled.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

The village was an ecstasy of terror. A thousand tons of discombobulated metal, canvas, and plastic rumbled towards the town. Steel girders sheared off the machine's ribcage and twirled deadly in the air. The metal monster's seven arms buckled and spun like the blades of an ancient rotorcraft. The calamity pulverized the first two houses on the main avenue. They exploded in a gray cloud of dust and splintered lumber.

Cobblestones burst like popcorn under the monster's weight and horse-drawn carriage disappeared, horse and all, under the spinning, warping, rumbling death. The machine screeched the swansong tearing iron and steel. It ground the town into mud and fire.

It settled.

A silence. A rhythm of whimpering rose like a cloudy sunrise. The villagers watch in fearful silence as dust settled, the heavy metal ribs of the machine had split asunder in the heart of the town square. Inside, like an eagle hatched -- full-grown -- from a metal egg stood a lefty from New Mexico.