I was watching the New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals game Wednesday afternoon, so I missed Sandy Alcantara turning back the clock and throwing the first complete game in the majors this year — a three-hit shutout in his second start of the year that led the Miami Marlins to a 10-0 win over the Chicago White Sox.
But upon I saw the highlights, I thought back to last June 11.
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My wife was at a school function, so I took our daughter to dinner at Applebee’s. It was a good time for father and daughter alike…I assume so, anyway, for her. Does any 12-year-old like being with her Dad in public, especially if he makes Dad jokes, which I may or may not do? Does a 13-year-old? Asking for me.
Regardless, we had a nice dinner and some nice conversation about our respective days. And since it was a school night, we were probably getting ready to go anyway when my eye caught the television airing the Mets-Nationals game and the sight of Mets pitcher David Peterson walking off the mound in the eighth inning.
“Molly,” I said. “We gotta go. David Peterson might throw a complete game.”
We raced home and got there in time to see the bottom of the ninth, when Peterson closed out not only his first nine-inning complete game but his first shutout as well by needing just nine pitches to set the Nationals down in order and close out a 5-0 win.
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That’s what the complete game has become: The modern version of the no-hitter, when you drop everything you’re doing to tune in (unless you’re watching the Mets step on rakes, I suppose).
How Many Complete Games Were There Last Season?
Just 29 pitchers went the distance in 2025 — a figure that includes rain-shortened complete games by Chris Bassitt (six innings), Nick Lodolo (six innings) and Bailey Ober (5 2/3 innings). Lodolo and Ober opposed each other on June 18, when Lodolo’s Cincinnati Reds beat Ober’s Minnesota Twins 4-2.
The 29 complete games were the second-fewest of all-time, ahead of only the 2024 season, when 28 pitchers went the distance, and continued the rapid endangerment of the complete game, which has shrunk in every half-decade since 1975 (discounting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).
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1975: 1,052 complete games
If the complete game were an animal, you’d be observing it behind several layers of plexiglass.
Who Has The Most Complete Games Among Active Pitchers?
Not Alcantara…yet.
Alcantara’s 13th career complete game snapped a tie for third amongst active pitchers with the Toronto Blue Jays’ Max Scherzer and leaves him behind the Atlanta Braves’ Chris Sale (16 complete games) and the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander (26 complete games).
Sale is in the midst of a career resurgence, and Verlander, who has 266 wins, is hoping to get to 300 victories, so it may be a while before Alcantara takes the active lead. But at some point in the next half-decade, assuming good health, Alcantara will likely become the active leader in complete games — and not by a little.
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Verlander, Sale, Alcantara and Scherzer are the only active pitchers with at least 10 complete games. Verlander’s teammate Framber Valdez has nine complete games but is 32, two years older than Alcantara. The only pitchers 30 or younger with as many as three complete games are the Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease, 30, and the San Francisco Giants’ Logan Webb, 29.
So Alcantara might have a Secretariat-esque lead on the field if and when he take the active lead — even if 13 complete games used to be a season’s worth of work and not a career’s worth of work.
Who Has Thrown The Most Complete Games In A Season?
Shoutout to Will White of the 1879 Cincinnati Reds, who somehow had more complete games (75) than decisions (74 following a 43-31 season). The record-holder in the modern era (1900-present) is Jack Chesbro, who only threw 48 complete games in 51 starts for the New York Yankees in 1904. Slacker!
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The days of pitchers completing half their starts or more are long gone, but we’re not far removed from hurlers reaching double figures in complete games. CC Sabathia (10 complete games in 2008) and James Shields (11 complete games in 2011) are the only pitchers to do so this century. A pitcher completed at least 10 games in a season 24 times in the 1990s and 154 times in the 1980s — including 11 such performances during the strike-shortened 1981 campaign.
All-time Complete Games Leaders
I’m old but not so old I remember Cy Young completing 749 (!!!) games. But eight of the 137 men to throw at least 200 complete games pitched at least into the 1980s — and two did so into the 1990s.
Gaylord Perry, 303 complete games (39th all-time, last pitched in 1983)
Fergie Jenkins, 267 complete games (63rd all-time, last pitched in 1983)
Steve Carlton, 254 complete games (75th all-time, last pitched in 1988)
Phil Niekro, 245 complete games (tied for 85th all-time, last pitched in 1987)
Bert Blyleven, 242 complete games (tied for 91st all-time, last pitched in 1992)
Tom Seaver, 231 complete games (tied for 100th all-time, last pitched in 1986)
Nolan Ryan, 222 complete games (tied for 113th all-time, last pitched in 1993)
Jim Palmer, 211 complete games (tied for 121st all-time, last pitched in 1984)
Remarkably, only Carlton, Seaver, Ryan and Palmer were first-ballot Hall of Fame inductees. Perry and Jenkins needed three tries apiece and went in together in 1991. Niekro needed five tries before being elected in 1997 and Blyleven inexplicably needed FOURTEEN YEARS on the ballot before he finally got elected in 2011.
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Nobody’s going to be considering complete games as a Hall of Fame barometer for Verlander, a surefire eventual inductee, and Sale, who moved back on to the Cooperstown fast track by winning the National League Cy Young in 2024. Nor, perhaps, for Alcantara, a former Cy Young Award winner who missed the 2024 season recovering from Tommy John surgery. Good thing, too, since he’d have to pitch for another 800 years or so to match Cy Young’s total.
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This story was originally published by Lindys Sports on Apr 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the MLB section. Add Lindys Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.