What is NRFI? How often does a run score in the first inning?
NRFI stands for No Run First Inning: neither team scores in the top or bottom of the first. It happens in about 51% of MLB games, because a run scores in the first inning only 49% of the time. It is close to a coin flip, tilted slightly toward no runs.
The logic is simple. Starting pitchers are freshest in the first inning, hitters are seeing them for the first time, and the top of the order is only guaranteed one trip through. Put those together and the first inning is quietly one of the lowest-scoring innings of the game.
Across 6,321 games. A near coin flip, leaning slightly to no runs.
Because it sits so close to 50/50, the first inning is one of the few corners of baseball where a careful model can find a real, if modest, edge. We grade every AI on the board on this exact call (YRFI: will a run score in the first?), and it is the one market where our own first-inning model shows a genuine advantage over the baseline.
Every number here comes from our own game database: 6,321 MLB games since 2024, rebuilt nightly. We compute rates across all qualifying games, never a cherry-picked window. This is descriptive history, not a prediction, and it updates on its own.
Last recomputed July 8, 2026.