Even if you have only watched baseball casually over the last decade and a half, you’ve become astutely aware that starting pitchers simply don’t pitch as deep into games as they once did. The consensus move by teams to both limit the number of pitches thrown by starters and to lean into churning and burning through relievers became so prevalent in that time that Major League Baseball began to actively search for ways to make those procedural moves not extend the time of play well past the three-hour mark each game.
As recently as the 2011 regular season, starting pitchers threw 29299.