Many of baseball's "small ball" or "one run" tactics center on attempts to move a runner on base into scoring position.
Such tactics were dominant in the 1890s and the dead-ball era, when extra-base hits were relatively rare.
Runners in scoring position are sometimes colloquially referred to as "ducks on the pond".
Recently, however, the statistic has been replaced with Win Probability Added, considered to be a better measure of clutch ability.
But if the batter records an out, then the inning ends with those runners left on base.