ARLINGTON -- Evan Carter thought he drew a walk.
In the third inning of Thursday night’s game against the Pirates, Carter -- who has been known as Full Count Carter since his Minor League days -- watched what he thought was ball four pass him before catcher Joey Bart successfully initiated an ABS challenge and got the ball overturned to a strike.
The count was then 3-1. It came to a full count after Carter swung through a fastball down and away from Pittsburgh’s Bubba Chandler.
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On the full-count offering, Carter connected with a fastball over the heart of the plate, sending it 385 feet toward the wall of the Rangers' bullpen in right-center field. It ricocheted off right fielder Ryan O’Hearn’s glove before bouncing off the wall into no-man’s land in center field, where Oneil Cruz tracked it down.
Carter glided around the bases, at first leisurely before finally turning on the jets at a top speed of 28.6 feet/per second, according to Statcast.
He went from home-to-home in 15.28 seconds as anticipation grew within Globe Life Field before diving headfirst into home plate for an inside-the-park home run that gave the Rangers a 2-0 lead.
It was Carter’s first career inside-the-park home run and the first by a Ranger since Wyatt Langford tallied his first Major League home run in dramatic fashion on April 28, 2024.