I, too, play this game and am convinced no pitcher will match Jack Taylor’s modern mark of 352 successive innings without being relieved. Known as “Brakeman Jack,” Taylor, while with the Cardinals and Cubs, set the equally untouchable companion mark of 187 successive complete games.
I must say that I’m a little confused by this statement, which is not clarified anywhere else in the article. 352 innings w/o being relieved is only about 40 games. So wouldn’t his 187 successive complete games give him nearly 1700 innings w/o being relieved? Could someone clarify for me what exactly this record is? Thanks.
Jack Taylor (not the earlier one known as “Brewery Jack”) pitched in 310 games in his career but only 286 were starts. He finished 278 of his 286 starts.
So, sometime during his long streak of complete game starts, he must have come in as a reliever and then been subsequently relieved. This likely happened because of an injury or a game turning into a rout.
Jack Taylor did in fact pitch 187 straight complete games for the Cubs and Cardinals in the 1900’s. Yes, this would give him at least 1700 innings or so, but he pitched in relief in at least one game every year of his career. So if he was relieved after being a relief pitcher himself, that would break the streak of innings without breaking the streak of complete games.
Taylor was a heck of a pitcher while he was pitching but retired in 1907 for no obvious reason. Here’s his career: