It may not always be true, but more often than not, those unearned runs will come back to bite you in the butt.  Maybe even more-so when they come in the first inning.  Of course, if it happens early, you have more time to recover and get it back.  However, a coach recently shared an interesting observations about first innings with me.  He said that after looking back through his scorebooks from the past few years, the majority of the games were won by the team who “won the first inning.”

What do you think about that?  Do you think that’s true?  Do you have scorebooks you can look back through and report back to us?  If so, leave a comment here and let us know what percentage of games were won by the team that “won the first inning.”  Go through each game and see if either team was leading after the first inning.  Then check to see if that’s the team that ended up winning the game.  Jot down your findings then calculate what percentage of games were won by the team who was leading after the first.  I’m curious to see what others have to say.

Anyway, getting sidetracked here.  I’m sure you’ve seen or been in games when unearned runs come back to bite you in the butt.  It really stinks!  But the fact of the matter is, great teams will rarely “give” you anything.  If you’re going to get across the plate you’re going to have to earn it!  And if you happen to “give” them anything, you’re just about done for.  Not that coming out on top is impossible, but it’s definitely going to be a fight to the end!  Either that or great teams know how to make you pay for your mistakes.  If you make one, they’re jump all over it and you better make sure you do the same if they happen to slip up.  If you don’t, you’ll find yourself in a major uphill battle.  Again, not impossible, but definitely a tough situation.

Given the observation above, IF your team was going to give up unearned runs, when would you rather have it happen?  I’m thinking I’d choose the 2nd.  Still time to get it back, yet possibly avoid losing that first inning and becoming a statistic.