My suggestion of thinking of every win as gaining a half-game and every loss as losing a half-game works for these situations. In the last one you mentioned:
Boston 20 10 New York 22 13
That means Boston is (20 * .5) - (10 * .5) = 5 games up in the standings versus the rest of the division, and New York is (22 * 0.5) - (13 * .5) = 4.5 games up. This makes it very clear that Boston is up by a half-game in that situation.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-11 01:40 pm (UTC)Boston 20 10
New York 22 13
That means Boston is (20 * .5) - (10 * .5) = 5 games up in the standings versus the rest of the division, and New York is (22 * 0.5) - (13 * .5) = 4.5 games up. This makes it very clear that Boston is up by a half-game in that situation.