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When I saw that the Yankees had scored their fifth and sixth runs in the top half of the seventh inning and the game was called before the bottom half of the inning could be played, I wondered whether the score should be 6-0 as the newspaper reported or 4-0 if those last two runs didn’t count? Some recollection from my youth told me that because the home team White Sox didn’t get their last raps, the score reverted to what it was at the end of the last complete inning of play – 4-0. So I consulted the Official Baseball Rules.

According to Rule 4.10(c)(1), if a game is called, it is a regulation game if five innings have been completed. Rule 4.11 states that the score of a regulation game is the total number of runs scored by each team at the moment the game ends, and Rule 4.11(d) provides that a called game ends at the moment the umpire terminates play. Taken together this means that the game was regulation because five innings (and more) had been completed, and as a regulation game, the final score is what the score was when the game was called. Now if those two runs the Yanks scored in the top half of the seventh had given them the lead, then under Rule 4.12(a)(5), the game would have become a suspended game that would have to be completed at a future date.

It’s really all academic anyway. The Sox weren’t going to come back from a 6-0 deficit. The largest lead they’ve overcome to win a game all year is three runs. Going into last night's game, they were 6-40 when trailing after six innings, 13-41 when the opponent scores 4+ runs, and 11-31 when the other team gets 10+ hits.  It just wasn't going to happen.

The only good news on the night is that the loss wasn’t Adam Dunn’s fault. He got one of the three Sox hits in the game, though he did add a strikeout to his total. It’s interesting that Dunn has struck out 80 times at home and “only” 58 times on the road in an equal number of games. The Big Donkey is giving Sox fans what they seem to enjoy – a chance to boo their own player. Go Sox!