Kim's softball team was playing in the championship game. When there were 4 innings left, the team was losing by a score of 17 to 6 runs. In the last 4 innings, her team scored the same number of runs per inning, and the other team did not score any more runs. Kim's team won with the most runs.

Question

Write an inequality to determine the number of runs per inning,

Find the minimum whole number of runs per inning Kim's team could have scored.
? runs per inning

Answer 1

Let x represent the number of runs scored per inning by Kim's team.

The total score for Kim's team after the last 4 innings would be 4x.

The total score for the other team after the first 5 innings is 17.

Since the total score at the end of the game is the same for both teams, we can set up the following inequality:

4x + 6 < 17

Solving for x:

4x < 11
x < 11/4

The minimum whole number of runs per inning Kim's team could have scored is 3 runs per inning.