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Baseball records that will never be broken, including Cal’s Iron Man Streak and more

By Ryan Morik

BALTIMORE, MD - SEPTEMBER 7: Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles raises his arms to ackownledge the fans as he takes a victory lap around Camden Yards in Baltimore 06 September after setting the record of 2,131 consecutive games played. Ripken broke the record set by Lou Gehrig, and the Orioles defeated the Angels 4-2. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read J. DAVID AKE/AFP via Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MD - SEPTEMBER 7: Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles raises his arms to ackownledge the fans as he takes a victory lap around Camden Yards in Baltimore 06 September after setting the record of 2,131 consecutive games played. Ripken broke the record set by Lou Gehrig, and the Orioles defeated the Angels 4-2. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read J. DAVID AKE/AFP via Getty Images) /
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circa 1910: Full-length portrait of American baseball player Cy Young (1867 – 1955), pitcher for the Cleveland Naps, lightly tossing a ball during warm-ups while wearing his uniform. (Photo by Photo File/Getty Images)
circa 1910: Full-length portrait of American baseball player Cy Young (1867 – 1955), pitcher for the Cleveland Naps, lightly tossing a ball during warm-ups while wearing his uniform. (Photo by Photo File/Getty Images) /

Unbreakable baseball records: Every starting pitching record ever

Cy Young’s record of 511 wins will never be touched. Since 1961, only 26 pitchers have made at least 511 STARTS, and just nine have since 1980.

CC Sabathia (560 starts) is the only pitcher in the 21st century to have as many starts as Cy Young had wins. No one else this century has more than 493.

Cy Young’s other unbreakable record is his 315 losses. Since 2000, only 47 pitchers have made 315 starts. So, maybe that record isn’t totally unbreakable — Jacob deGrom has never gotten run support a day in his life. There’s a real chance he can go 0-315 with 10 more Cy Young Awards.

Pud Galvin and Will White both hold the record for most starts in a season with 75. Out of 7,192 pitchers to make at least one appearance since 2010, only 1.6 percent of them have appeared in 75 games in a season. No one has made more than 50 starts in a season since 1904. The most starts made in a season this century is 36.

White tossed an MLB record 680 innings in 1879. The most innings thrown in a season this century is 266 by Roy Halladay in 2003. Justin Verlander led all of baseball with 223 innings in 2019.

Matt Kilroy struck out an MLB-record 513 batters in 68 games in his rookie season of 1886. (Quick tangent: The league seriously figured him out — in the rest of his career (235 games), he struck out just 657 batters. Talk about a one-year wonder.)

Anyway, just five pitchers have amassed at least 300 strikeouts in the last 10 seasons, with Gerrit Cole’s 326 from last year being the most.

Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger once each tossed 26 innings in the same game. The game ended in a 1-1 tie on May 1, 1920. Only five pitchers have tossed 10 innings in a game this century, so…yeah.

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