What is an inning and how many innings are there in baseball?

Baseball is a sport enjoyed in most parts of the world, just like most mainstream sports played across the world.

Unlike many sports determined by time, Baseball is rather different and is determined by innings.

In this article, we shall take a look at all there is to know about innings and how many innings there are in baseball.

Let’s get straight to it.

What is an inning in baseball?

As mentioned earlier, an inning is simply the division in the game of baseball where each team has a turn at batting. 

How many innings are there in baseball?

In the game of baseball, there are 9 innings.

This means the winner is seen after the ninth inning.

However, the game goes into extra innings should both teams be tied at the end of the ninth inning.

There is a twist here, which is that should the home team lead at the top of the ninth inning, the game ends without the ninth inning being played.

This is because the home team takes turn to bat in the ninth inning and there wouldn’t be any need to since they are already leading.

How innings work in baseball

In every game of baseball, there are two parts called half-innings.

The first is called the top inning whereas the second is called the button.

Here, one team does fielding, which is defending whiles the other team does batting, which is where they have to score.

Half-innings end when the team fielding records three outs.

Just like most sports, there’s always the home team and the away team.

In the game of baseball, the away team bats first in every half-inning, whereas the home team fields.

This happens vice versa in the second.

Top Inning

Top inning is the first part of each inning, also called top-half.

Here, the away team bats first whiles the home team fields.

When three outs are made, the top half is over and both teams switch.

Middle-inning

This is the transition period between the top and the bottom half.

Here, teams prepare for their switch.

The team switching from batting to fielding changes their gears and the same happens for those from fielding to batting.

Bottom inning

This is the second part of the game of baseball.

Here, home team takes their turn from fielding to batting whereas the switch from batting to fielding is done for the away team.

When three outs are made, the bottom inning is over.

Ninth inning

The ninth inning is the last inning of the game of baseball. Here, the home team takes the final turn in batting.

In some cases it doesn’t take place should the home team already have the lead.

 In other cases, there are extra innings after the ninth when both team are level at the end of the inning.

This is to decide the winner.