How to Use the Dugout Edge Game Day Tool

The Game Day Tool turns your phone or tablet into a dugout board. It keeps the lineup and inning-by-inning position assignments you already built in front of you, counts pitches for every pitcher automatically, holds your notes on players, and runs a scoreboard. This guide walks through everything from first setup to the post-game summary.

Stat tracking is new as of September 2026, and it is the piece coaches asked for most. When the tool launched it would not keep stats, on purpose. Now it will. Turn it on at setup and every at-bat you tap is recorded: hits, walks, strikeouts, RBI, stolen bases, and where the ball went. Balls and strikes fill the count on their own, so a fourth ball puts the batter on first and the pitch count climbs for whoever is on the mound without you thinking about it. The game ends with a real box score, and the totals roll into your team's season stats. Basic mode has not changed and is still there for the days you are also coaching third base.

It does the job of the magnetic lineup board most coaches buy every spring, and then some. No magnets to lose under the bench, no rewriting the board when you move a kid from second to right field in the fourth, and the positions you set are the ones that count toward each player's playing time. If you want to try that part on its own first, the magnetic lineup board is free and needs no account.

Before you head to the field: the tool keeps working if you briefly lose signal, since every tap saves on your device first and syncs when you reconnect. Starting a brand new game and live syncing to a second device do need a connection.

Before you start: set up your team and game

The Game Day Tool scores a game you have already created, so do these three things first:

1. Create your team and add your roster. Go to Teams, add each player with a name and jersey number.
2. Schedule the game. From your team, add the game with the opponent, date, and number of innings.
3. Build your lineup. Open the game and set your batting order and field positions by inning, or let the lineup generator build one from your roster. The Game Day Tool reads this lineup to know who is batting and who is in the field each inning.

The Game Day Tool is a premium feature, so make sure you are on a trial or paid plan. If you would rather not score live, or you are logging a game after the fact, use Quick Record from the game page instead: enter the final score and how many innings each player played, and skip live scoring entirely.

Want to see the board before you set any of this up? The free scorekeeping app runs the same tool in your browser with no account and no roster required.

Step 1: Open the Game Day Tool

From the game page, tap Start Game Day. The pre-game setup screen opens so you can confirm a few options before the first pitch.

Step 2: Pick your mode

You pick home or away, which sets which half of the inning you bat in, set a pitch limit if your league plays with one, and can turn on a game time limit if your league plays on a clock. The tool opens in full screen automatically once you tap Continue.

Basic is the dugout board. Your lineup and field positions, a live scoreboard, and an automatic pitch count for the pitcher on the mound. You tap runs, outs and baserunners as they happen and nothing else is asked of you. Pick this one if you are also coaching third base.

Stat tracking is the scorebook. Each batter comes up, you tap what happened, and the tool keeps the numbers: hits, walks, strikeouts, RBI, and where the ball went. Balls and strikes fill the count as you tap them, a fourth ball puts the batter on first, and a third strike is a strikeout, so the pitch count climbs without you thinking about it. You finish the game with a box score, and the totals roll into your team's season stats. Pick this one when you have a spare set of hands in the dugout, or when the season stats matter to your team.

The difference you feel first is the scoreboard. In Basic every number on it is yours to tap. In stat tracking the score, the outs and the bases are built from the at-bats you record, so reaching for one asks whether you would rather record the play or switch to Basic. That is deliberate: it keeps the scoreboard and the box score from telling two different stories about the same game. You can switch either way mid-game from the gear menu.

Step 3: Run the game

Once you start, the live view shows the scoreboard at the top with the inning, score, outs, count, and bases. The field and your lineup sit below.

Tap the scoreboard directly to run the game: add a run, tick an out, or bump a ball or strike. The count resets automatically at four balls or three strikes. While your team is fielding, every ball, strike, and foul also adds to your pitcher's running pitch count.

The batter strip shows who is up and who is on deck, and you record the result of the at-bat when it ends. On a ball in play the tool asks where it went and how it was hit, you tap the base each runner reached, and you can name the fielder who made the play. Each finished at-bat is written into the plays log in plain language, so you can read back the inning without knowing notation.

Tap a base on the field diagram to place or advance a runner. An empty base places a runner there; an occupied base opens Advance to / Out. Choose Home and the run scores automatically.

Not every base is taken on a batted ball. With stat tracking on, tap a runner and say where he ended up, then how he got there: a stolen base, a wild pitch, a passed ball, caught stealing, or picked off. Only the answers that fit the move are offered, and each tap moves exactly the runner you tapped, so a wild pitch that moved two runners is two taps. Every runner event shows up on the plays log in order.

The Pitch count card follows the active pitcher, and the Undo button above the action tiles reverses the last thing you tapped if you catch a mistake.

Use the notes card on the side to tag a player with a Star or something to Work on, or drop a free-form note about a substitution, the weather, or anything else you want to remember. Notes save with the game and show up in the post-game summary.

Step 4: Substitutions and pitching changes

Make changes right from the field:

• Substitutions: tap a player chip on the field, or use the Bench card, and choose Substitute / Pinch hit.
• Pitching changes: tap the pitcher's name on the pitch count card to bring in a new pitcher. The new pitcher starts with a fresh pitch count, and the previous pitcher's line is kept.
• Field positions: drag a player chip to a different spot on the field; the change applies from that inning forward.

Step 5: End the game and review

When the game is decided, the tool surfaces an End Game prompt with the final score. Tap to finalize, or keep playing if you are heading to extra innings.

After the game, the post-game view shows the final score and line score, the pitcher's pitch counts, the notes you took, and a Player of the Game pick. Record the at-bats and you also get the box score: at-bats, runs, hits, RBI, walks, strikeouts, and average for every batter, the pitching line for each pitcher, and putouts, assists, and errors in the field. Those numbers roll into your team's season stats, which live on the Stats tab of your team page and on each player's page. Field positions recorded during the game roll into each player's season playing time automatically. You can also print a recap sheet to hand out. From here you can exit back to the game page. Your scorecard is saved so you can review it later.

Share with family

Open the gear menu and tap Share with fans to copy a link. Anyone with the link can see your lineup and each player's playing time from their phone, no account needed.

What happens if you lose connection

The Game Day Tool saves every tap on your device first, so a brief drop in signal will not lose your work. While you are offline you will see an offline banner; keep scoring and your changes will sync automatically when you reconnect. Starting a brand new game and live syncing to a second device do need a connection.

Video walkthrough

The walkthrough is at the top of this page, and on YouTube here: How to Score a Baseball or Softball Game Using the Dugout Edge Game Day Tool. It covers setup, the live board, scoring every pitch and at bat, turning stat tracking off, and changing the lineup mid game.

Quick tips

• The lineup board, position assignments, scoreboard, runner tracking, notes, and automatic pitch counts are all on by default. There is nothing extra to turn on.
• Try recording every at-bat for the first time in a game where a parent can run the tool. It is not hard, but the first inning is easier when you are not also making a pitching change.
• Set a game time limit before you start if your league plays on a clock, so you get alerts at 10, 5, and 0 minutes remaining.
• Keep the tablet on a charger or fully charged. A live game can run a couple of hours.

More help

The scorekeeping help center goes deeper on each piece of a game:

• Score your first game, a start-to-finish walkthrough of a full game in order
• Pitch count tracking and how required rest works
• Tracking base runners, counting outs, and runs, hits, and errors
• Scoring with no signal at a field with bad reception
• Tracking player stats, what stat tracking records and where the numbers end up
• Reading and fixing the box score once the game is over

Still stuck? The FAQ page answers the most common Game Day questions, and the gear menu inside the tool has a Send feedback option that comes straight to us.