Okay, so the other day I was watching a baseball game with a buddy, and he kept seeing “RD” on the scoreboard and was totally lost. He’s like, “What the heck does RD mean in baseball?” I gotta admit, I wasn’t 100% sure either, so I figured it was time to do some digging.
My Little Investigation
First, I grabbed my phone and fired up the good old Google search. I typed in something like “baseball scoreboard abbreviations RD” and started browsing through the results.
I skimmed a few sports forums and articles. Turns out, it’s not a super common abbreviation you see every day, which is probably why we were both a bit stumped.
After some careful web searching, I learned that “RD” actually stands for “Run Differential”.
Figuring Out Run Differential
It is a simple idea and easy to understand.
- I learned that run differential is just the total number of runs a team has scored, minus the total number of runs they’ve allowed to their opponents.
- So, if my team scored 100 runs and let in 80, their run differential would be +20.
- If my team scored 80 runs and let in 100, their run differential would be -20.
And that’s all there is to it! Now I can confidently tell my buddy what “RD” means, and we can both get back to enjoying the game without any more confusion.
