How many complete games in 2017

This decline, which is certainly not a total revelation, steepened over the three years prior, from already an all-time low in to 83 in to 59 in Roughly speaking, that's 20 to 30 percent of complete games disappearing every year, long after the achievement had seemingly already become an anachronism.

The blue line shows complete games by year since The red line shows how many complete games per 4, games played -- a full season these days -- to control for strike-shortened seasons and expansion. So, if one were to extrapolate the past three years the simplest way possible, we'd say there will be around 32 complete games this year, 24 or so in , in the teens by and in single digits by By , there will be two complete games a year, fewer paradox alert!

Within 10 years of that, there will be a complete game about every decade, and by there will be a complete game per century. So, to answer one question, you -- you, specifically -- will see your final complete game sometime in the mids. We mostly jest, of course. Simple extrapolations are too simple. Not all complete games are threatened equally, and not all complete games are threatened by the same forces.

So to really get into this, we need to know which complete games are gone, and where they went. It helps, perhaps, to think about this decline as it relates to two players. In and around , Roger Clemens was probably the game's best pitcher, winner of the previous two Cy Young Awards and a contender for it in ' He threw 14 complete games that year. In and around , Max Scherzer was probably the game's best pitcher, winner of the previous two Cy Young Awards and a contender for it in ' He threw two complete games, same as he threw in Each pitcher was his era's horse -- Scherzer led the National League in complete games last year and in -- but the expectations had all changed.

So where did all but 42 of those complete games go? Where did all but two of those 14 go? The Ones Lost to Safety In , only one pitcher was allowed to throw as many as pitches in a start -- Sean Newcomb , who was chasing a no-hitter. After allowing a hit with two out in the ninth, he was immediately pulled. The most pitches anybody else threw was Justin Verlander , along with Bauer again.

We can surmise, then, that in , most managers had an unofficial hard cap of pitches, barring no-hitter pursuits, which are no longer at all automatic , either. That's one way of deducing how many pitches a pitcher gets in his quest for completion. Another, more universal one would be to look at the 95th-percentile pitch count for starters in a season, which would give us a pretty good idea of where almost all managers would set the ceiling on almost all pitchers in almost all circumstances.

The 95th-percentile pitch count last year was During that historic season, the Dodgers first in then brand new Dodger Stadium, Big-D struck out opposing batters and walked He also hit 11 batters, presumably most of them on purpose.

Koufax posted an absolutely insane 1. But hands down, the most remarkable accomplishment for Koufax during that historic season was that of the his 40 starts, he threw complete games in 20 of them — 11 via shutout — in his MLB-leading Even to this day there has never been a more feared righty-lefty duo than Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.

Between the two of them they made starts and completed of them. AP photo. But even these numbers pale in comparison to their respective individual career numbers. Of his career starts over his 14 MLB seasons, Drysdale completed of them. As for Koufax, of the games that he started over his 12 MLB seasons, he completed of them. Are we gaining empathy and camaraderie and relief? Yes, we escape into games.

But when games are their best, the experience is so much greater than an emotional exit. Video games can be frivolous. They can be important. And quite often, they manage to be both at once. This year, we collected 50 of our top games into a list. What a strange joy to see all of them together. And what a relief that, in , so few of these games involve shooting people in the head, splashes of blood being the only color in their world.

Instead, we have games that recognize the fragility and preciousness of human life, games that deal with death, mental health, teenage anxiety and child illness. They respect life.

Big franchises that could have preyed on our nostalgia voluntarily evolved, creators engaging with our fandom, but firmly pushing their artistic goals forward — and us with them. Games dropped us into the lives of troubled families in the Pacific Northwest, morally complicated gangsters in Tokyo, baseball-obsessed high school girls in San Francisco Bay and artificial intelligence in the distant future. They questioned how we live through instant messages, texts, our home screens and even a glorified spreadsheet.

It is imperfect; it is improving. Of course, games still can be addictive, puerile and base. As they sometimes should be! But the magic of games in , stemming from the abundance and variety of experiences, is the emphatic confirmation that games mean so much more to so many more people than they ever have before. In , we will be once again escaping. In these escapes we have the opportunity to recharge and grow.

Games offer the tools for us to contextualize the past, to safely experiment within the present, and simulate frameworks for the future. Its story of a young woman landing her first job as a mortician not-so-subtly spotlights the at best tacky and at worst malicious nature of the massive corporations that churn through grieving families, encouraging them to send off their loved ones in coffins and services that reap the most profit.

You clean, massage, empty, beautify and dispatch dead bodies. And then you provide a shoulder to loved one — or simply bear witness to a corpse when no one else will. The video game industry is built on the destruction of bodies of all kinds. How refreshing to play a game that asks you to care for them, even after their life has left.

Portions of the story draw on shopworn themes of sports movies, but given the constraints Young and partner Adrian Todd Zuniga inevitably faced with an image-conscious licensing partner like the NFL, that they could deliver something as meaningful as Longshot is an underappreciated writing achievement.

With a little patience and creative thinking, even the hardest puzzles are fun to figure out. Unless, of course, your partner insists on snipping you to pieces. The Uncharted series has always been about relationships: the relationship between Nathan Drake and his criminal buddy Victor Sullivan, or his wife Elena, or his brother Sam.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy pivots on this focus on relationships by removing Drake from the equation entirely. The puzzles and history remain the focus, while the combat never overstays its welcome. After four main Uncharted stories, we were ready for a new take on the story, and The Lost Legacy refreshes the gameplay, the puzzles and the banter in one perfectly packaged experience. Observer can be a nasty little virus of a game, infecting your mind with its sickly vision of a future.

An ingenious blend of Groundhog Day and immersive theater like Sleep No More , The Sexy Brutale requires the player to prevent a string of murders without ever being spotted. If you miss a moment of the story or the opportunity to stop a killing , you can stop and rewind time for another chance. Despite the clever, mind-bending mechanics, what sticks months after playing The Sexy Brutale is its lovely story of forgiveness and redemption.

Yakuza 0 almost feels like the year's best minigame collection. In between its scenes about family loyalty and gangster drama, our hero Kiryu encounters one hilarious side quest after another. He even helps to produce a feature film. Never underestimate the power of local multiplayer. Splatoon 2 fixes the mistakes of its predecessor by embracing the couch — and reminds us how much fun we can have playing in the same room.. As much as the new characters, clothing options, Splatfests and soundtrack are wonderful additions to Splatoon 2 , nothing feels better than Salmon Run.

The horde co-op mode creates for some of the most intense, heart-pumping, hilarious challenges found in any game this year. Nioh is what happens when you build an entire game around a nearly perfect combat system.

The premise of the mechanics goes something like this: Ninja Theory took the fast-paced character action style that it perfected in the Ninja Gaiden series and mixed it with the precision of Dark Souls, then added fighting stances that made the whole thing four times as complicated. But the game is neither as commercially crass nor artistically ostentatious as the premise suggests. Instead, Hidden Folks is confident, relaxed and charming. Previously, de Jongh operated within the studio Game Oven, where he created games that explored physical spaces.

Sadly, those projects have never found the mainstream audience they deserve. With Hidden Folks , de Jongh seems to accept that we now live within our screens. Rather than scold us for our obsession with screens, de Jongh creates a space free of gaudy color, notifications and noise. They have stretchy, springy arms. And they come in oddball types. Carl Mays. Jesse Haines. Lee Meadows. Larry Benton. Red Lucas. Erv Brame. Pat Malone.

Dizzy Dean. Lon Warneke. Carl Hubbell. Jim Turner. Paul Derringer. Bucky Walters. Jim Tobin. Rip Sewell. Red Barrett. Johnny Sain. Ewell Blackwell. Warren Spahn. Vern Bickford. Robin Roberts. Bob Porterfield. Camilo Pascual. Lew Burdette. Juan Marichal. Sandy Koufax. Fergie Jenkins. Bob Gibson. Mickey Lolich. Gaylord Perry. Steve Carlton. Tom Seaver. Phil Niekro. Catfish Hunter. Andy Messersmith.

Randy Jones. Mike Caldwell.