In baseball statistics

Baseball statistics

Statistics play an important role in summarizing baseball performance and evaluating players in the sport.Since the flow of a baseball game has natural breaks to it, and normally players act individually rather than performing in clusters, the sport lends itself to easy record-keeping and statistics...

, inherited runners, or inherited baserunners, are the runners on base when a relief pitcher enters the game. Since a previous pitcher has allowed these runners to reach base (or was simply pitching when the runners reached base, such as in the case of a fielding error

Error (baseball)

In baseball statistics, an error is the act, in the judgment of the official scorer, of a fielder misplaying a ball in a manner that allows a batter or baserunner to reach one or more additional bases, when such an advance would have been prevented given ordinary effort by the fielder.The term ...

), any inherited runners who score when the relief pitcher is pitching are charged to the previous pitcher's runs allowed and/or earned runs allowed

Earned run

In baseball, an earned run is any run for which the pitcher is held accountable . Any runner who tags his base and reaches home plate is scored against the pitcher as an earned run...

total, depending on how each runner reached base. Modern box scores list how many runners each relief pitcher inherits (if any), and how many of those inherited runners the relief pitcher allows to score.