How often do MLB games go to extra innings?
About 9% of MLB games go to extra innings, or roughly one in every 11. Free baseball is more of a treat than a regular event.
That rate reflects the current ghost-runner era, where a runner starts on second in each extra half-inning specifically to end games faster. Before that rule, games were slightly likelier to reach extras and far likelier to drag deep into the night once they did.
Across 6,321 games. The large majority are decided in regulation.
For anyone modeling a game, extras are a small but real tail: about one game in twelve keeps going, and the ghost runner makes those innings much higher-scoring than a normal frame. It is a minor factor for a single game and a real one across a full season of totals.
Every number here comes from our own game database: 6,321 MLB games since 2024, rebuilt nightly. We compute rates across all qualifying games, never a cherry-picked window. This is descriptive history, not a prediction, and it updates on its own.
Last recomputed July 8, 2026.