#96---PHI @ CIN, 4/15/2013

One thing that I have always had trouble keeping in mind about scorekeeping is that “score” is prominently included in the name. I have always been so focused on recording the minutia of the play on the field that the score of the game has often been afterthought. Of course, part of recording the play on the field is marking when runs are scored, and I have never had any trouble doing that. However, I have often eschewed any sort of summary of the game in progress. Some of the earliest examples with the scoresheet I’ve basically been using since 1998 don’t even include the final score of the game. I knew it at the time, and figured that if I were ever interested in revisiting it, I could just tally up the runs then.

Eventually I made a point of recording the final score of each game (which also made it easy to spot scoresheets that showed the first nine innings of an extra-inning affair, since they had no final score), but it wasn’t until 2013 that I bothered to record a running tally of the score as the game progresses, which you can see in this example. The 2, enclosed with a box, at the end of the Reds’ seventh inning line indicates their total score at this point was 2. When they added another pair in the eighth, this became a 4. I only recorded this running score if it changed, which cuts down on excess writing but sometimes requires a look back through the previous inning summaries.

This was a good game; through 6.5 innings both Bronson Arroyo and Cliff Lee had three-hit their opponents. But in the Cincinnati seventh Votto singled, Phillips doubled, Votto scored on a wild pitch that also moved Phillips to third, Bruce walked, and Frazier hit a sac fly. But Philadelphia would tie it on Chase Utley’s two-out, two-run pinch hit homer in the eighth. But Jerry Horst allowed two hits, then intentionally walked Joey Votto as Mike Adams was summoned with only one out. Brandon Phillips singled in two runs on a 1-2 pitch, and Aroldis Chapman mowed down the Phillies in the ninth. The final was 4-2, and you could actually finally follow the progress towards it on my scoresheet.

Note Chris Heisey's 7th inning PA, in which he reached on a throwing error by the pitcher. The "-->2" under the "TE1" indicates that the errant throw was directed to second base. Otherwise, in lieu of any notation, it would be assumed to have been made in an attempt to retire Heisey, the batter-runner.