SAN FRANCISCO – Seattle Mariners Executive Vice President & General Manager of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto announced today the following roster moves:
• Taylor Motter, INF/OF, recalled from AAA Tacoma.
• Nelson Cruz, DH, placed on the 10-day disabled list (retroactive to 4/1) with a sprained right ankle.
Motter (#21) will be in uniform and available for today’s (1:35 pm PT) game at the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park.
Motter, 28, hit .297 (19×64) with 7 runs, 7 doubles, 1 triple, 2 home runs and 14 RBI in 25 Cactus League games with the Mariners this spring. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound right-handed hitting utility player appeared in 92 games with Seattle last season. He hit .198 (51×258) with 12 doubles, 7 home runs and 26 RBI. 16-of-his-19 extra-base hits came vs. right-handed pitchers, including all 7 of his home runs. He spent 25 games (July 24-Aug. 20) with AAA Tacoma, where he hit .305 (35×100) with 24 runs, 6 doubles, 1 triple, 7 home runs and 18 RBI with a .427 on-base percentage and a .640 slugging mark.
In parts of two Major League seasons with Tampa Bay (2016) and Seattle (2017), Taylor is a career .195 (66×338) hitter with 9 home runs and 35 RBI in 125 career MLB games. He was selected by Tampa Bay in the 17th round of the 2011 MLB First-Year Player Draft out of Coastal Carolina University and made his Major League debut with the Rays on May 16, 2016 at Toronto. He played both shortstop and the outfield and became the only player since 1913 to appear at shortstop and in the outfield in his MLB debut. He has appeared at eight defensive positions in the Majors (1B-16 G, 2B-24, 3B-10, SS-48, LF-22, RF-11 and P-1).
Cruz, 37, sustained a sprained right ankle during the Mariners game on March 31 after slipping on the dugout stairs. In the first two games of the season, he was 2-for-6 with 2 runs, 2 home runs and 4 RBI. He homered in the first two games of the season, the fourth time in his career he has accomplished that feat, becoming the first player in MLB history to homer in the first two games of four separate seasons.
Cruz hit .288 (160×556) with 91 runs, 28 doubles, 39 home runs, 119 RBI and a .375 on-base percentage and a .549 slugging percentage last season in 155 games. He led the AL in RBI, and the 119 were a career high. He won a Silver Slugger® and was the Edgar Martinez Award Winner as the game’s top designated hitter, as well as earning his fifth All-Star Game appearance.
Cruz is the only player to hit 20 or more home runs in each of the last 9 seasons. He has a total of 325 home runs in his career with Milwaukee (2005), Texas (2006-2013), Baltimore (2014) and Seattle (2015-current).
