27 MLB records that will never be broken
Walter Johnson. 1907-1927. 110 Career Shutouts. 9. player. 90.
“The Big Train” Walter Johnson is one of the greatest pitchers in Major League Baseball history despite playing all 21 of his big league seasons for the long-suffering Washington Senators – a franchise that represented the eight-team American League in the World Series three times during his career, with the only win coming in 1924.
Johnson earned a 417-279 career win-loss record and posted a 2.17 ERA across 802 games, 666 starts and 5,914.1 innings – 110 of which were complete game shutouts, a Major League record. Not only is Johnson the only pitcher in big league history to collect more than 100 shutouts, he has a full 20 more than second place Grover Cleveland Alexander and 31 more than Christy Mathewson.
To compare Johnson’s record to modern pitchers, the active leader in career shutouts is Tim Hudson with 13. Bartolo Colon, Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia each have 12. Roy Halladay, who last played in 2013, recorded 20 shutouts in his career.
In the modern era, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver each retired with 61 career complete games and Bert Blyleven had 60. All rank in the top ten in the career record books thanks to outstanding Hall of Fame careers, but none came close to Walter Johnson.
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