Two outs, bottom of the ninth

Posted by Bob on November 27, 2005

In Reply to: Two outs, bottom of the ninth posted by KP on November 27, 2005

: Hello. What could the sentence 'Two outs, bottom of the ninth' could mean? Guys are talking about baseball.

It is baseball talk. There are (barring ties) nine innings in a game. Each innning has two halves: the top, when the visiting team is on offense, and the bottom, when the home team has the final chances. There are three outs in an inning. So two outs in the bottom of the ninth means the home team (which is behind or tied in the score) has only a slight chance to salvage the game. One more out and it's over. So ... if we are applying the phrase as a metaphor, someone is down to a last desperate measure to save the day.