Recently, a friend of mine, in a group text about baseball, made a comment about how, paradoxically, a team can score fewer runs in total than its opponent in a doubleheader and win both games. I replied, “I’m having trouble with the math on this.” While I waited for his reply, I did a query on my iPhone, and this is what I wrote to him after I got the AI result.
I think you broke the Internet. AI agrees with you but I don’t agree with AI.
This is the AI summary:
Yes, a team can definitely score fewer total runs in a doubleheader than the other team and still win both games. Here’s how:
• Scoring Just Enough to Win:To win a single baseball game, a team simply needs to score one more run than the opposing team, regardless of the overall run totals.
• The Scenario: Imagine a doubleheader where the scores are:
Game 1: Team A wins 2-1 (Team A scored 2 runs, Team B scored 1 run)
Game 2: Team A wins 3-2 (Team A scored 3 runs, Team B scored 2 runs)
• Total Runs:
Team A total runs: 2 + 3 = 5 runs
Team B total runs: 1 + 2 = 3 runs
In this scenario, Team A scored fewer total runs across the doubleheader (5 runs) than Team B (3 runs), yet still won both games. This is because winning individual games is about outscoring the opponent in that specific contest, not necessarily racking up the most runs across the entire doubleheader.
I was shocked with how obviously wrong this summary was.
Bottom line – as we have heard, be careful/double check when using AI.
By the way, later that day, I was curious about what ChatGPT would say, so I entered my query there. ChatGPT got it right, but it was amusing to see how it worked through the answer. The rest of this post is ChatGPT’s response:
Yes — it’s possible to win both games of a doubleheader while scoring fewer total runs than the other team.
The key is that baseball (and softball) games are decided individually, not on total runs combined. You just need to win each game separately, regardless of the combined score.
Here’s an example:
• Game 1: You win 1–0
• Game 2: You win 2–1
You’ve won both games, but you scored 3 runs total and your opponent scored 1 run total — okay, in this example you still have more.
Let’s make it so you have fewer total runs:
• Game 1: You win 1–0
• Game 2: You win 2–10 in opponent’s favor — wait, that would be a loss, so not possible here.
• To make it work, you have to win both games but by very slim margins while they lose one by a big margin… actually, that’s impossible if you truly win both.
Thinking carefully:
If you win both games, you score at least one more run than the other team in each game. Adding those margins together means your total runs over both games will always be higher than theirs.
So the answer is actually: No — if you win both games, you will always have more total runs.
Best regards,
David