How Many Innings Are in a Baseball Game
With more than 170 million fans, baseball is among the top three most popular sports in the US. In 2024, more than 64 million people came to the stadiums to watch live games, with the playoff matches recording the highest attendance. Given the number of games in the MLB playoffs, these numbers are more than respectable.
This speaks about its popularity and how much people love watching and playing baseball, but it’s interesting that not all of them know MLB rules 100%. One of the things that many people are not completely sure about is how many innings there are in a baseball game and how many innings there are in college baseball.
These are the topics we’re covering in this article. We will talk more about the baseball rules, explain more about what innings are, what are the differences between college and professional baseball, and more. Follow up and learn more about baseball, MLB and the game’s rules.
What are innings?
For someone who has never played baseball before it’s normal to be unaware of what innings are. Even if you know about baseball partially, you might not be fully aware of what innings are and how they work. This is the right time to learn more about terminology and baseball innings in general.
So what is an inning?
Basketball has quarters, soccer has halves and hockey has three periods, baseball has innings. There are nine in total in the professional MLB league, after which the winner is declared. During one meaning, each team will do the batting while the other is pitching.
The main goal of the pitcher is to strike out three batters to make the switch from pitching to batting. Of course, this is only one of the ways, as there are different types of outs – groundout, flyout, lineout, pop-out, etc.
When both teams get three outs, the inning is over, and the game moves into the next one. If no team scores a run during their batting time, the score will be zero-zero for that inning. This is extremely rare, but even if it happens, the game will go into extra innings until the winner is determined.
How Many Innings Are There in a College Baseball Game?
The rule is the same for college games. A game has nine innings, but if the game is tied, players will go on for as long as needed to get a winner. There are situations in which a game can last only seven innings, but these situations are not in the official college baseball league rules.
Two college games by the same team are often played on the same day. Due to the time issue, these “doubleheaders” are known to have only 7 innings. Because of situations like these, many fans will often ask whether baseball is 7 or 9 innings.
Is baseball 7 or 9 innings?
So, is baseball 7 or 9 innings? The answer is both. Although seven innings are played at lower competition levels, and nine innings are dominant in the professional league, it’s normal for a fan to ask this question. If we’re talking about the MLB, then this question makes no sense, as all MLB games have nine innings.
What we didn’t mention is that a baseball game might not have either. On many occasions, matches go into extra innings when the score is tied. Then, there’s a 10th inning and it might go indefinitely if no one scores a point. The longest game in recent history was the 1974 match between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets, which lasted a whopping 22 innings and over seven hours.
In 2022, the MLB introduced the 10th inning rule. In the extra inning, the rule says the batting team starts with a runner on second base. With it, pitchers should suffer less from arm strains – a common pitching injury.
What is the 10th-inning rule?
As we mentioned, the 10th-inning rule allows batting teams to place a runner on second base, making it much easier to score a point. It does not guarantee a point, but it significantly shortens the game on many occasions, which is why fans are mainly against it.
Conclusion
MLB is constantly changing. Inning rules are often introduced without fans knowing about these changes. Even umpires might be confused sometimes because they are used to the old rules. However, with the average MLB umpire salary being much higher than the average US salary, they must pay extra attention and keep the game sharp.
Right now, the minimum innings in higher-level baseball competitions is seven, while nine is the official inning amount in college and the MLB, but the game is often played for 10 or more. With all this being said, the only answer to this question is – it depends, but officially it is 9.