Expert: Tom Schott - 7/24/2009

Question
QUESTION: What is the least amount of pitches that have been thrown in an inning? Theoretically the minimum is 6 pitches - for example if the batter swings at the first pitch and pops out or grounds out etc. Has this ever happened? Thanks.

Tony

ANSWER: The minimum is three pitches, and this has been done hundreds of times.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I meant for a full inning. Both teams batting.
Has that ever happened?

Answer
Sorry I misunderstood. From what I can see, a six-pitch inning has never happened, although the pitch count records are very spotty until just recently. What I said about there being lots of times a pitcher has gotten out of an inning on three pitches is definitely true, however. Although even then, these are rare enough that you would expect it happening to each pitcher in the same inning to be extremely rare.

See: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/3_pitch_inning.shtml