how can a baseball team be behind by 1/2 games? e.g 3.5, 4.5....?

Answer 1

as stated correctly by 2 people before me, a FULL game ahead is a win by team A (let's say the yanks) and a loss by team B (the sox). Therefore, If team A wins and team B doesn't play, team A is ahead by 1/2 game.

In order to determine quickly how many games ahead one team is of another, use the following method.

Suppose team A is 30-18, and team B is 28-20. In order to quickly determine how many games ahead of team B is team A, take team A's "proximity to average record"- meaning, take their larger total, (in this case wins) and subtract from it their loss total. In this case, 30-18=12. Then, do the same for team B, and you will get 28-20=8. Finally, Subtract your answers (12-8) and take half of that. What this does is says that team A is 4 more games above "average" (more commonly known as "500"), and this taken in half (4/2=2) will tell you that if team A loses 2 games in a row and team B wins 2 games in a row they will be tied.

Now, keep A's record the same at 30-18, but add one win to team B (to make them 29-20) if you do the same thing you will discover that team A is 1.5 games ahead of team B, which is to say that if A loses and B wins, and THEN either A loses and B doesn't play, OR B wins and A doesn't play, they will be tied.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

To calculate how many games one team is behind the other...

1. Subtract the # of wins by the second place team from the # of wins from the first place team

2. Subtract the # of losses by the first place team from the # of losses by the second place team

3. Add those two numbers together and divide by two.

Sometimes when you add the numbers you get in steps 1 and 2, the sum is an odd number. That's where the half games come from.

It's not necessarily true that if two teams have played a different number of games then one will be X and half games behind the other. Even if two teams have played a different number of games, the difference between them will be in whole games if they've both played an odd number or both played an even number of games. The half games happen when one team has played an odd number of games, and the other has played an even number of games.

Answer 3

Whenever a team is ahead or behind by 1/2 games, it means that one of the two have played fewer games than the other. So if Team A has a record of 10-6 and Team B has a record of 11-6, Team B would be up by .5 games because they played one more game and have more wins but the same amount of losses.

Answer 4

A team gets behind by half a game because the two teams haven't played the same number of games. If team A wins and team B looses, that is considered 1 game. So if Team a wins and Team B dosen't even play, they are only down half a game.

Answer 5

I would say somewhere inbetween A and B. It is mostt definitely more than 65%. I'm a huge Yankee fan and I love to bet on them which means I watch almost all of their games. However, there are times when I can only catch the last few innings or maybe even the first few depending on the situation. BQ - I've been to Yankee stadium 3 times ( all wins ) and I've been to Baltimore twice to see them. (Arod's first game off the DL where he went deep, and recently when they scored 7 in the top of 9th.) 5-0 baby!

Answer 6

Well the teams did not play even games.

Answer 7

when the team at the top has played more or less games than the teams behind it.

Answer 8

Record, Record Record.

Lets say one team is 100-50

Now lets say another one is 95-55.

Theirfore the team is behing by 5 games because they have a worse record by 5 games.