Doubleheaders, Seven-Inning Games and Suspended Games
How doubleheaders work, why some games last seven innings, what makes a shortened game official, and how a suspended game is resumed, with the history and the rules in plain language.
A baseball game does not always fit the neat picture of nine innings on one afternoon. Teams play two games in a day, games get stopped by rain or darkness and finished weeks later, and some games are scheduled for only seven innings. Each of these situations has a rule behind it, and the rules answer questions that come up every season: is a rain-shortened game a real win, can a game really resume in the middle of an at-bat, and does a seven-inning no-hitter count?
This article explains three related ideas. A doubleheader is two games between the same two teams on the same day. A seven-inning game is a game scheduled for fewer than the standard nine, which has been normal in the minor leagues and amateur baseball for a long time and was used in the majors for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. A suspended game is one that was started but not finished and is picked up again from the exact point where it stopped.
The rules below are described as they stand in the Official Baseball Rules and in widely documented practice, as of the 2025 season. Rules change, so for any dispute about a particular game, the league's current rulebook and the official scorer's decision are the authority.
Two kinds of doubleheader
A traditional doubleheader, sometimes called a single-admission doubleheader or a twin bill, is two games played back to back with one ticket. The second game begins a short time after the first ends, usually around half an hour. A fan who buys a ticket sees both games, and the home team has one gate for the day.
A split doubleheader, or day-night doubleheader, is two games with separate admissions. The first game is played in the afternoon, the park is cleared, and a second game is played in the evening, with a gap of several hours between them. The usual reason is money. Two gates are worth more than one, so clubs that have to make up a postponed game often prefer a split doubleheader when the schedule permits.
In both cases the two games are separate games. Each has its own lineup card, its own box score, its own official result and its own starting pitchers. A player can start in game one, rest in game two, or play in both. The league schedule treats a doubleheader as two games, and the standings count two results.
Why doubleheaders happen
The common cause is a postponement. When weather or another problem keeps a game from being played, the league's rules require that it be made up if it could matter to the standings, and the most efficient way to find a date is often to put it on the same day as another game between the same clubs. A doubleheader also saves a travel day, and in a crowded schedule that can be the only way to fit the game in.
A game that was postponed and never started is different from one that was started and not finished. The first is a postponement and the second is a suspension, which is covered below. The distinction matters for the rules, for tickets and for the statistics.
If a postponed game has no effect on which teams make the postseason or how they are seeded, the league can decide not to play it at all. That is why a rainout in the final week of a season sometimes just disappears from the schedule.
Doubleheaders can also be scheduled in advance. For much of the first half of the twentieth century, scheduled doubleheaders were a regular feature of the calendar, particularly on weekends and holidays. They became much rarer as night games, television and the demands of rested pitching staffs changed how clubs thought about the schedule, and today almost every doubleheader in the major leagues is a make-up of a postponed game.
What a doubleheader does to a roster
Two games in one day strain a pitching staff, because a starter cannot throw twice and a bullpen that is used heavily in the first game may be unavailable for the second. Managers respond by planning two starters, lining up extra relievers and sometimes using a different lineup in game two.
The rules have given clubs some help. In recent seasons teams have been permitted to add a player to the active roster for a doubleheader, so a club carrying the standard 26 players can have 27 on the day. The exact terms, including who may be added and how the player returns to the minor leagues, are governed by the collective bargaining agreement and can change, so check the current rules. The 40-man roster, the 26-man roster and the injured list explains the roster limits that the extra player works around.
What makes a game official
Baseball does not have a clock, so the rules must say when a stopped game counts. A game is a regulation game after the visiting team has batted in five innings and the home team has batted in five, or after four and a half innings if the home team is ahead (because the home team does not need to bat in the bottom of the inning it is already winning). If the game is called at that point or later, the score at the moment it stops becomes the final score, with some conditions around innings that were in progress.
Before the fifth inning is finished, a stopped game is not official. The score is wiped out, individual statistics from it do not count and the club normally replays the game from the start. That is why rain delays in the early innings are so tense. A batter who has hit a home run in the second inning of a game that is called in the fourth gets no credit, and a pitcher with a no-hitter through four has nothing to show for it.
When a game is stopped and the score is tied, the current rules do not record a tie. A tied game that is stopped after it has become official is suspended and resumed later, which is a change from earlier eras. In the past a tie could be the final result, and the whole game would be replayed or, in some cases, left as a tie in the standings.
The famous example from the early days is the game between Brooklyn and Boston on May 1, 1920, which was called after 26 innings with the score tied at 1-1 because of darkness. That game remains the longest in the major leagues by innings, and under the modern rule it would have been suspended and finished another day. Before the era of lighted ballparks, darkness was a regular reason to end a game, which is part of why ties appear in the old record books.
Suspended games and how they resume
A game is suspended when the umpires stop it for a reason that the rules allow to be continued later. The accepted reasons include curfews, time limits imposed by league rules, light failures, malfunctioning equipment and weather. Once a game is suspended, it is not over: it is resumed from the exact point where it stopped, with the same score, the same inning, the same number of outs, the same count on the batter and the same runners on the same bases.
The lineups are held as they were, with one important wrinkle. A player who has already been removed from the game cannot come back in the resumed portion, because that would break the substitution rules. Any player on the roster who has not yet appeared in the game can replace a player who is no longer with the club or is unavailable, and the club can also make ordinary substitutions as it would have in the original game. The resumed portion is part of the same game, so only one game is added to the schedule and the statistics.
Timing is governed by the rules too. A suspended game is generally completed before the next scheduled game between the same two clubs, and if the teams will not meet again, the rules and the league's schedule set a date for finishing it. That is why fans sometimes see a few extra innings played before a regular game and then a full game afterward.
The best-known suspended game in modern baseball was played in Chicago in May 1984. The Brewers and the White Sox played into the early hours of May 9, when the American League's curfew rule stopped play with the score tied. The game resumed the following evening, ran to the 25th inning and ended when the White Sox won, 7-6, on a home run by Harold Baines. In total, the game covered 25 innings across two days and remains one of the most-discussed games of the era.
Seven-inning games: the minors, the colleges and the 2020 experiment
In most levels of baseball below the major leagues, seven innings is a normal length for some or all games. In the minor leagues, doubleheaders are usually scheduled as two seven-inning games, because two nine-inning games on a single evening would be a long night for players and fans. College doubleheaders are commonly two seven-inning games, and high school games are seven innings. Little League's Majors division plays six, and softball at most levels plays seven.
The majors used seven-inning doubleheader games in 2020 and 2021. The 2020 season was shortened and compressed by the pandemic, and seven-inning doubleheader games were adopted to ease the workload on pitching staffs. The practice continued for 2021. For 2022 the majors went back to nine innings in each game of a doubleheader.
The seven-inning games used the same extra-innings rule as other 2020 games: if the game was tied after seven innings, extra innings began with a runner on second base. The extra-innings runner rule covers the reasoning and the strategy.
What seven innings changes
Dropping two innings removes about 22 percent of a team's outs: 21 outs per team in seven innings against 27 in nine. That has consequences.
- Starters have a shorter job. A starter who can give six strong innings has finished most of the game, so the middle relievers and the bullpen's ability to cover the last inning or two matter less than in a nine-inning game.
- Variance goes up. Fewer plate appearances mean fewer chances for the better team to show its advantage, which is the same reason a short series produces more upsets than a long one. A club that wins 60 percent of nine-inning games would be expected to win somewhat less often in seven.
- Every inning is worth more. An early lead is a larger share of the whole game, so a three-run first inning is harder to overcome in seven innings than in nine.
- Rest improves. Fewer innings means fewer pitches thrown across a long day, which was the point of the format.
None of this makes a seven-inning game less real, but it makes it a slightly different game, and the people who set the schedule know it.
How the record book handles shortened games
The statistical rules were written for nine-inning games and adapted for the others. A few key points follow.
Wins. A starting pitcher gets the win only if he pitches at least five innings in a game of six or more innings and his team takes the lead for good while he is in the game. The scoring rule also sets four innings for a game that lasts only five. That requirement did not change for the seven-inning games of 2020 and 2021, so a starter still needed five innings.
Complete games and shutouts. A pitcher who works the entire game, whatever its length, is credited with a complete game, and a shutout if he allows no runs. A complete game in a seven-inning contest is therefore a complete game in the record book.
No-hitters. Under the statistical rules in force since 1991, a no-hitter must be a game of at least nine innings, so a pitcher who throws a seven-inning no-hit game has done something remarkable that does not appear on the official list. A game of fewer than nine innings that is called early also cannot qualify.
Suspended games. A game suspended and resumed counts as one game. The plate appearances and innings from both portions are added together. Players who appeared only in the resumed portion are credited with a game.
For how a doubleheader appears on the page, see how to read a baseball box score. Each game has its own box score and its own line score, and many sites label them Game 1 and Game 2.
Why baseball keeps tinkering with game length
The seven-inning games of 2020 and 2021 were part of a longer conversation about the length of games and the load on pitchers. The extra-innings runner, the pitch clock and the limits on mound visits all came from the same impulse to keep the game moving and the players healthy. The rules for mound visits and pickoffs are covered in the mound visit rules and pickoff limits.
Nine innings remains the standard for regular major-league games. But the way that seven-inning games were adopted quickly, used for two seasons and then dropped shows how flexible the format can be when circumstances demand it.
Common questions
How many innings are in each game of a doubleheader today? Nine in the major leagues, as of the 2025 season. In the minor leagues and in college, doubleheaders are usually two seven-inning games.
Does a rain-shortened game count in the standings? Yes, if it has become a regulation game. At least five innings must have been played, or four and a half if the home team is ahead.
What is the difference between a postponed game and a suspended game? A postponed game never started and is replayed from the beginning. A suspended game started and is resumed from the point where it stopped.
Does a seven-inning no-hitter count? Not on the official list. The statistical rules require at least nine innings.
Can a player play in both games of a doubleheader? Yes. A player can play in both, rest in one or be replaced in either, but a pitcher who starts game one is unlikely to pitch again that day.
Where to go next
For the schedule of any club, see the schedule page, and for recent results, the scores page. More explainers on rules and officiating are collected on the rules and umpiring topic page.