Taylor Motter, Ben Gamel lead Mariners to big comeback at Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – One was a utility player with no real track record of big-league success. The other was ticketed for Triple-A Tacoma to start the season, having been outplayed by Guillermo Heredia. The fact that he was on the Mariners’ roster was a product of the Yankees not seeing him as part of their future.

Going into the 2017 season, Taylor Motter and Ben Gamel were known and loved for their flowing manes leaking out the back of their gaps and spilling over their face, leading to hair flips ripe for Twitter.

But through the course of the 2017 season, both players have provided some substance to go with their untrimmed style.

On Tuesday night, they helped the Mariners rally from two four-run deficits in a 10-9 win over the Phillies at Citizen’s Bank Park.

Motter delivered the winning hit with a double in the top of the ninth. Gamel tallied four hits, including an RBI double and a two-run homer, while also throwing out a potential go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth to allow his teammate to play the hero.

Motter was only in the game because Robinson Cano exited the game with a strained quadriceps in the fourth inning, having hit a two-run homer in his second at-bat and doubling earlier in the inning.

Gamel is only playing because every day right fielder Mitch Haniger is out with a strained oblique.

But in the two youngsters, the Mariners have found players they can trust going forward.

After an abysmal first inning where he could gave up four runs and probably should have given up more, Mariners starter Ariel Miranda seemed to regain his command issues for a span of two innings, allowing his teammates to give him a 5-4 lead.

But after Seattle scored three runs in the top of the fourth, highlighted by Gamel’s two-run homer, Miranda couldn’t post a shutdown bottom half of the frame.

Instead, he turned it into a debacle.

For the third time in the game, he walked the first batter of an inning. And from there, it only got worse. A RBI double, a single, a sacrifice fly and another single knocked him out of the game. His replacement, Jean Machi, was just as bad if not worse. Machi served up a three-run homer to the first batter he faced – Aaron Altherr – on a 1-2 change-up over the middle of the plate to make it 9-5. Machi wouldn’t allow another run in the frame despite loading the bases and throwing 10 consecutive balls at one point to walk two batters.

But a lineup without Cano and Nelson Cruz, who was limited to pinch-hit duties thanks to the lack of a designated hitter and a sore hamstring, rallied to stop the game from turning into rout, despite the worst efforts from the pitching staff.

The Mariners rallied in the sixth, scoring three runs on an RBI single from Kyle Seager and a two-out error by Maikel Franco that allowed pinch-hitter Cruz to single up the middle to make it 9-8.

In the seventh, Gamel tied the game at 9 on an RBI double to left-center that Jean Segura got a great read on and was able to score from first.