Tyler Motter, a career minor league shortstop and injury replacement for the Mariners, hit his fifth home run of the 2017 today. He hit poorly in 34 games for the Rays in his rookie year of 2016, but found his power after getting a chance to play after Jean Segura went down.

Motter is not hitting for a high average nor getting on base very well, but 10 of his 12 hits went for extra bases, splitting them evenly between doubles and homers. That kind of power is useful.

Motter plays 2017 as a 27-year-old. He is at the peak of his career right now, and if doesn’t stick to a big league team now, he probably never will. He is at least giving the Mariners options for when Segura returns. Maybe the Mariners can get lucky and flip him to a team that needs a shortstop if he can keep this up for a while. This is just probably just a small sample size bit of luck, however.

The Mariners lead the Athletics 6-0 after six innings.