Major League Baseball recognizes
runs scored leaders in the
American League and
National League each season. In baseball, a run is scored when a player advances safely around first, second and third
base and returns safely to
home plate, touching the bases in that order, before three
outs are recorded. A player may score by hitting a
home run or by any combination of plays that puts him safely "on base" (that is, on first, second, or third) as a
runner and subsequently brings him home. The object of the game is for a team to score more runs than its opponent.
In
baseball statistics, a player who advances around all the bases to score is credited with a run (R), sometimes referred to as a "run scored." While runs scored is considered an important individual batting statistic, it is regarded as less significant than
runs batted in (RBIs)—superiority in the latter, for instance, is one of the elements of the exceptional batting achievement known as the
Triple Crown. Both individual runs scored and runs batted in are heavily context-dependent; for a more sophisticated assessment of a player's contribution toward producing runs for his team, see
runs created.