What Major League Player Has Pitched the Most Innings?

Cy Young is the major league player who has pitched the most innings, with 7,356 innings, or roughly the equivalent of 150 entire baseball games more than any other pitcher in history. Young’s baseball career lasted from 1890 through 1911, and no major league player since him has exceeded his record as of 2015. He won a total of 511 games during his baseball career, the most of any pitcher in history. Young also set the records for most games completed, at 749. On 5 May 1904, he became the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in American League history when the Boston Red Sox won over the Philadelphia Athletics.

More about Cy Young:

• Cy Young’s real name was Denton True Young—his nickname of Cy was short for “Cyclone” due to the speed of his fastball pitch.


• For 83 years, Young held the record for oldest pitcher to throw a no-hitter, at 41 years old in 1908, and it wasn’t broken until 1991 by 44 year old Nolan Ryan.


• The Cy Young Award was created in 1956, a year after Young’s death, to recognize the best pitcher in the American League and National League.