The back of Chris Carter’s baseball card looked like a forgery to any Yankees fan who had watched his first two months in pinstripes.
The National League-worst 206 strikeouts with the Brewers last season checked out. The .199 batting average with the Astros in 2015 made sense.
But it didn’t seem possible that the struggling slugger could have shared the National League-lead with 41 home runs last season, while driving in 94 runs.
Carter has had plenty of chances to showcase his power, more opportunities than the Yankees would have preferred. With Greg Bird sidelined by injury for most of the season, Carter has toiled at the bottom of the lineup, hovering around the Mendoza Line, while hitting four home runs, with 14 RBIs in his first 113 at-bats of the season.