Free Baseball / Softball scoreboard

Why score Baseball / Softball with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Baseball / Softball
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Baseball / Softball scoring works

The scoring unit is the run. A run is scored when a runner advances in order to first, second and third base, then touches home plate, without being put out and before the third out of the inning. Several runners may score on a single play; a home run hit out of the field lets the batter and all runners already on base score. If the third out is a force out (or the batter-runner is out before first base), no run scores on the play, even if a runner crossed home plate before the out.

Match format

Baseball: 9 innings, each inning split into a top half (visiting team bats) and a bottom half (home team bats). Softball: 7 innings on the same principle. If the score is tied at the end of regulation, extra innings are played until the tie is broken. Many competitions apply a run-ahead rule ("mercy rule") that ends the game if one team leads by a large margin (e.g. 10 runs) after a set number of innings.

How to win

The team that has scored the most runs at the end of the regulation number of innings wins. There is no draw in an official game: if the score is tied after 9 innings (baseball) or 7 innings (softball), extra innings are played until one team leads at the end of a complete inning. A run-ahead rule may award the win early.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

Score by accumulating points (runs) with no upper limit. Main counters: runs per team (final score), current inning (1 to 9 baseball / 1 to 7 softball), half-inning (top/bottom). Auxiliary counters reset each half-inning: outs (0 to 3), strikes (0 to 3), balls (0 to 4). Game ends at the close of regulation innings, with extra-inning handling on a tie; configurable run-ahead rule option.

How a run actually counts in baseball

One run is scored each time a runner legally advances to and touches first, second, third and home base before three men are put out to end the inning (Rule 5.08(a)). That is the whole scoreboard. Hits, errors and runners left on base explain the runs; they never add to them.

The exception is where games are lost. No run scores if the runner reaches home on a play whose third out is made by the batter-runner before he touches first base, by any runner being forced out, or by a preceding runner declared out for missing a base. Two outs, a base hit, the runner scores from second, the batter-runner thrown out at first: no run.

A regulation game is nine innings (7.01(a)). Tied after nine, play continues until the visiting team leads at the end of a completed inning or the home team scores the winning run in an uncompleted one. In the regular season, each half-inning after the ninth then begins with a runner on second base: the hitter placed immediately before that half-inning's leadoff batter (7.01(b)(2)). The Major Leagues switch that runner off for the Wild Card, Division, League Championship and World Series (7.01(g)), so the postseason plays its extra innings empty.

With the bases loaded and the winning run forced home, the umpire does not end the game until the runner forced from third has touched home and the batter-runner has touched first (5.08(b)). And a called game is already a regulation game once five innings are complete (7.01(d)(1)).

(Major League Baseball, Official Baseball Rules, 2026 edition, rules 2.01, 2.04, 5.08, 5.10, 6.03, 7.01 and 9.01 to 9.16; WBSC, Official Rules of Baseball 2025-2026, Appendix 1, rules A1.2, A1.4 and A1.8; FFBS, Règles officielles du baseball 2026 and the federal pitch-count sheet.)

The score sheet: what the scorer decides, and what he never decides

The nine fielders carry numbers, 1 for the pitcher round to 9 in right field, and every play is a chain: 6-4-3 is shortstop to second baseman to first baseman. The Official Scorer alone rules on the judgment calls of Rule 9 (9.01(a)), but never against an umpire's decision or the rules (9.01(b)(1)).

Hit or error rewrites everyone's line. An error is charged whenever a fielder using ordinary effort would have retired the runner, touched ball or not: a grounder through the legs is an error, slow handling with no mechanical misplay is not (9.12(a)(1) and Comment). Earned runs then come from reconstructing the inning without errors and passed balls, benefit of the doubt to the pitcher (9.16).

Batting out of turn is the trap nobody warns you about, because the rules forbid the warning: neither the scorer (9.01(b)(4)) nor the umpire (6.03(b)(7) Comment) may point it out. The defence must appeal before the first pitch to the next batter of either team, or before any play or attempted play; the proper batter is then out and the improper batter's advance nullified (6.03(b)(3)). After that pitch, it all becomes legal (6.03(b)(5)).

Prove the sheet every half-inning. It balances when times at bat, bases on balls received, hit batters, sacrifice bunts, sacrifice flies and batters awarded first for interference, obstruction or a shift restriction violation equal runs, players left on base and the opponents' putouts (9.03(c)). A sacrifice or a walk is not a time at bat (9.02(a)(1)), and a player once removed never re-enters (5.10(d)).

From a U-12 diamond to a World Cup: what actually changes

The field in the Official Baseball Rules is fixed: a 90-foot (27.43 m) infield square, the pitcher's plate 60 feet 6 inches (18.44 m) from home base (2.04) and 10 inches above its level, and 250 feet or more to the nearest fence in fair territory (2.01). WBSC keeps that infield from U-15 up, but sets its own outfields: 325 feet minimum down the lines at U-15, U-18 and U-23, 275 to 290 feet at the Women's World Cup. At the U-12 World Cup the bases are 75 feet (22.86 m) apart, the plate sits at 51 feet (15.54 m) and the mound is 6 inches high.

Length follows the category: nine innings under the Official Baseball Rules and at the Premier12, six at the U-12 Baseball World Cup, seven at U-15, U-18, U-23 and Women's (A1.2). Extra innings there do not start empty — each team begins with runners on first and second and nobody out, and every run those placed runners score counts as unearned (A1.4.2).

The run-difference rule ends games early: fifteen runs once a losing U-12 team has batted at least four innings, ten once it has batted five; ten runs after five innings batted from U-15 up. It is waived for the World Championship game and enforced for the bronze medal game (A1.4.1). What triggers it is innings batted, not innings played.

At youth level the heaviest column is the pitch count. WBSC sets rest days by pitches thrown: at U-12, 1 to 30 with no rest, 31 to 45 one day, 46 to 60 two, 61 to 75 three, 85 as a hard ceiling with four days; at U-15 the steps run 35, 50, 65, 80 and a 95 maximum (A1.8). France counts differently: the FFBS caps a pitcher over three days — 50 pitches at 9U, 75 at 12U, 85 at 15U, 95 at 18U — and a pitcher who reaches the limit may finish the batter he is facing. The Official Scorers keep the count, and a WBSC breach ejects and suspends the team manager and fines his federation; it does not hand the game to the other side.

What ScoreZen changes for baseball

You score from your phone with the whole state on one screen: runs for each team, the inning, and outs, balls and strikes as counters you tap up and that clear on their own when the inning turns. One thumb behind the backstop instead of a clipboard on your knees.

Then you share the game with a link, or a QR code taped to the fence. Parents, grandparents and the player resting a sore elbow follow the live score from anywhere. Spectators are free, unlimited, and never need an account. TV mode fills a laptop or a screen in the clubhouse, the transparent overlay drops the live score into OBS, and the A4 score sheet prints for the paper trail. If the network dies between innings, ScoreZen keeps counting without it and resynchronises afterwards.

For a tournament weekend, ScoreZen runs knockout with an optional third-place game, home-and-away championship, pools into a final bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, and rotating teams. One QR code covers the whole tournament: every player scans the same code and lands on their own game, so the diamonds keep moving while you stay at the table.

Afterwards, the Replay summary and the vertical Story image are made to be shared, the club site embeds the widget, the season exports its fixtures to CSV, the read-only public API needs no key, and the ICS feed puts the schedule in everyone's calendar. 34 sports, 25 languages, three trial matches free for life, then one payment of €1.99for life.

Frequently asked questions