How can a baseball team be ahead by 3.5 games?

Question

I have always wondered how a baseball team can be ahead in a conference by like 3.5 games. Please help!!!

Answer 1

Favorite Answer

NL Central: W L Pct. GB Home Road

St. Louis Cardinals 91 71 .562 — 46–35 45–36

Chicago Cubs 83 78 .516 7½ 46–34 37–44

Look at the Games Behind column.

St.Louis won 8 more games than the Cubs, and lost 7 less games than the Cubs.

Average the the two numbers: 8+7=15, 15/2=7.5 or 7 1/2.

For a team to be a whole number behind, eg. 8, they must be 8 wins short and 8 losses more than the team above.

Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Major_League_Bas...

Answer 2

Basically, it depends on the number of games the two compared teams have played.

For example, let's say Team A has played 5 games, and is 5-0. Team B has also played 5 games, and is 0-5. Team A is ahead by 5 wins, so Team A is ahead by 5 games.

However, let's say Team B has only played 4 games, but is still winless at 0-4. Even though Team A has 5 more wins than Team B, since they have not played an equal number of games, Team A is only ahead by 4.5 games. If Team B plays its 5th game and wins, Team A is only ahead by 4 games.

To become ahead by another entire game, one team must win a game and the other must lose. If one team has played an extra game, then the lead will be ?.5 games.

Hope this helps. :)

Answer 3

the comparision team will have had to play at least a game more or less than the original team. A: 7-2 and B: 5-3 is 2 in the win and 1 in the loss making team A 2.5 games ahead

Answer 4

The difference in wins plus the difference in losses. Then divided by two. Being down by a game means that a loss by the winning team and a win by the losing team leaves them tied. When there is a GB involving a half a game it usually means that one team has played an odd amount of more than the other team.

Answer 5

subtract your wins from your losses

subtract the other teams wins and losses

take the difference between those and divide by 2

Say

Yankees are 50-30

Red Sox 40-39

Yanks 20 over Red Sox 1 over

Difference is 19 Divide by 2 and the Sox are 9. games behind

It happens because teams may not have played the same amount of games on any given day.

Answer 6

Down by 3 wins and 4 losses. Average it and it equals 3.5 games

Answer 7

It means they only played a half game. Either it ended in the middle of the game from bad weather or they are in the middle of a game playing it and already winning or got cancelled early but still counted as a win.

Answer 8

1 win is .5 games, and 1 loss is .5 games. so if one team has 1 more win and the same amount of losses, they are up by .5 games. hopefully this helps.