Home vs Road Leads After 5 Innings: Which MLB Lead Holds Better?
A home lead after five innings holds more often than a road lead of the same size. That advantage shrinks as leads grow and reverses on the run line.
Written by Sakura MoriBaseball Tips specialist
- Checkpoint
- Inning by inning
- Question
- When a team leads after five innings, how much more often does that lead hold if the leader is the home team rather than the road team?
- Sample
- MLB regular season 2000-2025, 61,241 completed nine-inning-scheduled games with inning-by-inning line scores
- 84.0%Home teams leading after 5 innings who won
- 80.6%Road teams leading after 5 innings who won
- 69.5%One-run home lead after 5 that held
- 65.2%One-run road lead after 5 that held
When I watch a game reach the middle of the sixth, the first thing I check is not just the score but who is batting last. This study asks how much that matters. Across 61,241 regular-season games from 2000-2025, it measures how often a lead after five innings survives when the leader is at home versus on the road.
The headline answer: home leaders after five won 84.0% of the time, road leaders 80.6%. The gap is widest for one-run leads and nearly gone by the time a lead reaches four runs. The run line behaves differently, which is the part I find most useful. This study sits alongside the reads on my baseball tips page, where the starting pitcher and the state of the bullpen usually do the heavy lifting.
Break 1Home leads hold better at every lead size
The dumbbell chart sets the home leader's win rate against the road leader's for each lead size after five innings. The widest separation is at a single run, where 69.5% of home leads held against 65.2% of road leads, across 7,943 and 7,514 games respectively. A two-run lead held 80.8% at home and 77.8% on the road. At three runs it was 88.8% against 86.5%.
Further up the chart the dots almost touch. A four-run lead held 93.3% at home and 92.8% away, and leads of 5+ held 98.1% and 97.2%.
View the data: win % of the team leading after 5, home vs road
| Home leader | Road leader | |
|---|---|---|
| Lead of 1 (7,943 home / 7,514 road) | 69.5% | 65.2% |
| Lead of 2 (6,312 home / 5,575 road) | 80.8% | 77.8% |
| Lead of 3 (4,548 home / 3,907 road) | 88.8% | 86.5% |
| Lead of 4 (3,160 home / 2,659 road) | 93.3% | 92.8% |
| Lead of 5+ (6,060 home / 4,561 road) | 98.1% | 97.2% |
My read is that the home team's real asset is the last at-bat. It matters most when one swing can change the result, and much less once the gap needs several swings to close.
Break 2The home edge reverses on the run line
This chart subtracts the road leader's rate from the home leader's for two outcomes: winning, and winning by 2+. On win percentage, every bar sits on the home side. That runs from 4.3 points at a one-run lead down to 0.5 at four runs, with 3.4 points across all leads. On the −1.5 run line, the one-run, two-run, three-run and four-run bars all point the other way. The one-run gap is −4.3.
Across all leads, home leaders after five won by 2+ in 65.9% of games and road leaders in 66.9%. That is a −1.0 point swing against the side that wins more often.
View the data: home leader minus road leader, by lead after 5
| Win % | Wins by 2+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Lead of 1 | +4.3 pts | −4.3 pts |
| Lead of 2 | +3 pts | −3.7 pts |
| Lead of 3 | +2.3 pts | −2 pts |
| Lead of 4 | +0.5 pts | −1.3 pts |
| Lead of 5+ | +0.9 pts | +0.4 pts |
| All leads | +3.4 pts | −1 pts |
The reason is structural. A home team ahead after 8½ innings does not bat in the ninth, so it never gets the chance to pad its margin. The road team always does.
Break 3Where a one-run lead actually ends up
The heatmap splits each lead into four endings: win by 2+ in nine, win by one in nine, extra innings, or lose in nine. For a one-run home lead the split is 37.7%, 25.4%, 12.1% and 24.8%. For a one-run road lead it is 40.2%, 19, 12.5% and 28.2%. The road leader loses more often, but it also turns more of its wins into comfortable ones.
Home leaders pile up in the 'wins by 1' column, which reflects the same walk-off and no-ninth effect. Extra innings barely differ between the two sides, so the split is really about how the nine innings resolve.
View the data: lead after 5 innings → how the game ends
| Leader wins by 2+ in 9 | Leader wins by 1 in 9 | Extra innings | Leader loses in 9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home +1 | 37.7% | 25.4% | 12.1% | 24.8% |
| Home +2 | 58.0% | 18.7% | 8.0% | 15.3% |
| Home +3 | 73.3% | 13.1% | 4.9% | 8.8% |
| Home +4 | 84.2% | 7.5% | 3.6% | 4.7% |
| Home +5+ | 94.3% | 3.3% | 0.9% | 1.6% |
| Road +1 | 40.2% | 19.0% | 12.5% | 28.2% |
| Road +2 | 59.9% | 13.6% | 8.9% | 17.6% |
| Road +3 | 74.4% | 9.6% | 5.5% | 10.5% |
| Road +4 | 84.7% | 6.3% | 3.3% | 5.8% |
| Road +5+ | 93.7% | 2.9% | 1.4% | 2.0% |
If I am weighing a run line on a narrow leader after five, this grid is the chart I return to. It shows the margin distribution, which a plain win rate hides.
Break 4Fair prices for one-, two- and three-run leaders
The table turns the win rates into no-margin American odds. A one-run home leader prices at −228 and a one-run road leader at −187. At two runs the figures are −421 and −350, and at three runs −793 and −641. The 95% ranges are tight, about a point either side, because these samples run into the thousands.
The final column repeats the run-line pattern with extra innings included. One-run home leaders won by 2+ in 38.5% of games against 42.8% for road leaders.
| Leader after 5 | Games | Wins | 95% range | Fair odds | Wins by 2+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home leads by 1 | 7,943 | 69.5% | 68.5%–70.5% | −228 | 38.5% |
| Home leads by 2 | 6,312 | 80.8% | 79.8%–81.8% | −421 | 58.5% |
| Home leads by 3 | 4,548 | 88.8% | 87.9%–89.7% | −793 | 73.6% |
| Road leads by 1 | 7,514 | 65.2% | 64.1%–66.3% | −187 | 42.8% |
| Road leads by 2 | 5,575 | 77.8% | 76.7%–78.9% | −350 | 62.2% |
| Road leads by 3 | 3,907 | 86.5% | 85.4%–87.6% | −641 | 75.6% |
These are historical frequencies, not a betting system, and they say nothing about which team was the stronger side on the night. A lead built by an ace facing a tired bullpen is not the same as a lead built off a struggling fifth starter. I treat these prices as a baseline to compare live markets against, not as a replacement for reading the matchup.
At the break
- Note who bats last
A one-run home lead after five held 69.5% of the time against 65.2% for a road lead. Price the two differently even when the scoreboard looks the same.
- Fade home leaders on −1.5
Home leaders after five covered the −1.5 run line in 65.9% of games against 66.9% for road leaders. The home side's missing ninth is the reason.
- Compare live price to baseline
Fair odds for a one-run leader after five are −228 at home and −187 on the road. A live price shorter than that needs a matchup reason to justify it.
Questions bettors ask
How often does the team leading after 5 innings win in MLB?
Across 52,239 games with a leader after five innings, that team won 82.4% of the time. Home leaders won 84.0% and road leaders 80.6%.
Does a one-run lead after 5 innings usually hold?
It held more often than not, but far from always. A one-run home lead held 69.5% of the time and a one-run road lead 65.2%, with about one in eight going to extra innings.
Why do road leaders cover the run line more often?
A home team ahead after 8½ innings does not bat in the ninth, which caps its winning margin. As a result, one-run road leaders after five ended as 2+ run winners inside nine innings in 40.2% of games, against 37.7% for home leaders.
Baseball writer at htft.tips. Starting pitching, bullpen load and park factors shape almost every read I publish.
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