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The Inning, The Nothing, The Darkness. Rangers lose 10-8 to Rays

<p>Adrian Beltre sees the impenetrable cloud of Nothing as it enters the stadium, but is unable to swat it away. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)</p>

“You will eat but not be satisfied; your stomach will still be empty. You will store up but save nothing, because what you save I will give to the sword.” Micah 6:14, NIV

The Texas Rangers have scored 21 7th-inning runs in their first 52 games in 2017.

Their opponents? 43.

It is as if the Rangers are being forced to relive Game Five of the 2015 ALDS all over, on repeat, except instead of a cavalcade of inexplicable errors, it’s a new sacrifice from the bullpen to The Inning each night. Jeffress, Dyson, Bush, Kela, Claudio, Barnette: any or all of them borderline unhittable at times in their career, have taken turns as the sacrificial arm in an attempt to sate the interminable maw of The Seventh. And yet, night after night, arm after arm, the inning eats.

Tonight, The Inning’s meal was particularly rapacious. Texas owned a 7-5 lead, a hard-earned storing up of runs that came at first in bunches (three runs in the first inning, two of them thanks to a Nomar Mazara double), then in short but violent bursts (Joey Gallo’s second-inning home run went an estimated 430 feet, then his fourth-inning double off the wall led to a Robinson Chirinos RBI single), and finally in a weird coupling (Chirinos walked, advanced on two wild pitches, Jared Hoying walked and stole second base, and both scored when Shin-Soo Choo bounced a single between a drawn-in middle infield).

But The Inning waits, The Inning lurks. The Inning respects no man, and betrays all who would hope to tame it.

Jeremy Jeffress, a perfect 1-2-3 sixth inning behind him, ventured first into the dark, and the dark swallowed him whole. Steven Souza, Jr. doubled down the left field line, and Jeffress was vanquished.

Alex Claudio followed, and he made his grand entrance by hitting Corey Dickerson with a 70mph pitch. With two on, Claudio struck his wibble-wobble lighter, and flickered light into the cave of horrors, each flicker a tiny victory against the enveloping blindness. But lighters and flickers have no place in The Nothing, and he was removed for his audacity of hope.

In charged Tony Barnette, the wild-haired warrior of the North. And The Inning brought forth a goat, and the goat was called Rasmus, and the goat did bleat its horrible scream, and the echoes of the scream did pierce the ears of all who had ears to hear. And the goat did stand on second base and his bleat-scream grew words which did howl for all the world to hear. “THE INNING DEMANDS A LIFE” screamed the goat, and a shiver did shake the entire bowl of humanity.

So Jeff Banister intentionally walked Kevin Kiermaier, in hopes that The Inning, The Darkness, The Nothing might swallow its sacrifice, and lie down in slumber, killing no more.

But nay, the Darkness did rise, and plunged a scythe into the heart of Tony Barnette, and all who would accompany him into this endless dimension of death and hurt and despair. And the scythe (Tim Beckham) didst hit a monstrous home run. "The plan was to get ahead with the curveball," Barnette would utter later. "It's not the way you draw it up. I've got to make a better pitch in that situation."

And the world did crumble a little more, and the hurt did win another night, and the people did cry and tear their clothes and fall to their knees and cry into The Darkness “WHY DOTH THOU REQUIRE SUCH BLOOD. WHAT HATH WE DONE TO EARN SUCH SCORN? HATH WE NOT GIVEN UP THE VERY HOPE OF OUR SOULS UNTO THEE?”

And the Darkness belched and licked its lips and spun thrice, and it did lay down with a spiteful smile. And it did sleep.

Tony Barnette struck out three of the four he faced in the eighth inning.

The Rangers lost 10-8.

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