On the heels of the Craig Calcaterra-inspired “7-3 score day” post, there was a request for the most frequent final scores in baseball history. Fortunately, the VORG is prepared with the Retrosheet game logs of most every contest from 1871-2010, so one crosstab of home and visitor scores later, and I’ve determined there have been approximately 611 unique final scores (from many instances of 0-0 up to one game on June 28, 1871 that ended 49-33).
Here is the top 10 (combined totals based on either team winning):
| WINNING TEAM | |||
| SCORE | HOME | VISITOR | TOTAL |
| 3-2 | 6,511 | 4,382 | 10,893 |
| 4-3 | 6,341 | 4,180 | 10,521 |
| 2-1 | 5,288 | 3,545 | 8,833 |
| 5-4 | 5,143 | 3,122 | 8,265 |
| 4-2 | 3,554 | 3,449 | 7,003 |
| 3-1 | 3,333 | 2,976 | 6,309 |
| 5-3 | 3,016 | 3,046 | 6,062 |
| 6-5 | 3,720 | 2,316 | 6,036 |
| 5-2 | 3,031 | 2,687 | 5,718 |
| 4-1 | 2,932 | 1,408 | 4,340 |
The 1-run games should and do favor the home team (from 1901-2011, they’ve won 61% of such games), as any tie game in the ninth (or beyond) need only see the home team push across a single run. The situation of the road team winning the slight majority of 5-3 games is actually well within the realm of possibility, as road teams have won 50.1% of 2-run games since 1901.
Thanks!
A 4-3 game is probably a good game. Enough action to keep everyone interested, but not so much as to indicate lousy pitching or horrible fielding. It’s close enough so that there’s a threat of tying it up right down to the last batter.
I’m sure someone out there has charted the percentage of 1-run games over baseball’s history. As offense has increased, I’d expect that % to decrease (due to increased range of scores)
I wonder how this has changed over time. (Not that you need to look it up or anything!)
I actually DO have them broken out by year, but I need a VERY rainy day to try and chart that.