Little League mercy rule and baseball run rules by league

Baseball run rules by league

In Little League, Cal Ripken, Babe Ruth and Texas high schools, each threshold comes half an inning sooner when the home team is ahead, because it does not need its turn at bat. The Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth figures are for tournament games; check your local league for the regular season.

How does the Little League run rule work?

Under Little League Rule 4.10(e), the manager of the trailing team concedes once one team leads by:

• 15 runs after 3 innings (2 and a half if the home team is ahead)
• 10 runs after 4 innings (3 and a half if the home team is ahead)
• 8 runs after 5 innings (4 and a half if the home team is ahead), an optional regular-season tier that the local league must choose to adopt

Those are the 6-inning divisions. In Intermediate (50/70), Junior and Senior League each step comes one inning later: 15 runs after 4 innings, 10 runs after 5 or 8 runs after 6 (half an inning sooner if the home team is ahead).

Two things decide whether the rule ends a game:

• Who is ahead. If the visiting team leads, the home team still bats in its half of the inning, so the home team always gets a chance to reply. A home team that reaches the margin in its own half wins as soon as that run scores, without finishing the inning.
• Regular season or tournament. A local league may choose not to use the run rule in the regular season: its board of directors decides which divisions use it and whether to add the 8-run tier. In the Little League International Tournament, which ends at the Little League World Series, the 10- and 15-run rules are mandatory and there is no 8-run rule.

A Little League game ended by the 10-run rule

Here is a Major Division game, one row per half-inning in which a team scored.

Had the visitors been the ones 10 ahead after the top of the 4th, the Lions would still have batted in the bottom half.

Do high school and college baseball have a mercy rule?

Usually, but the details are set locally. NFHS rules let each state association adopt its own game-ending procedure, so the margin, and whether it applies in the playoffs, differs from state to state. The Texas row comes from the UIL Baseball Manual; anywhere else, check your state association's rules before a big game.

In college, NCAA Rule 2-79 allows the 10-run rule only by conference rule or with both coaches' agreement before the game, and each team still bats in an equal number of innings unless the home team does not need its last turn. The NCAA tournament and Men's College World Series play every game to the finish.

Is there a mercy rule in international baseball?

Yes. WBSC rules scale the margin to the event, as the table shows, and count it once the trailing team has batted the set number of innings. So a home team that leads by enough wins without batting in its half of that inning, while a visiting team that leads must wait for the home team to bat.

The World Baseball Classic uses its run rule in pool play and the quarterfinals only: the semifinals and final are played to a finish.