Sunday afternoon, an MLB record was set.
Sure, we don’t really know if 21 pitches in a single at-bat is indeed history throughout the entirety of Major League Baseball. It turns out that MLB in 1887 wasn’t tracking the actual number of pitches thrown (including fouls) in an at-bat. They weren’t in 1987, either. (Such tracking began in 1988.) But, for as long as the official records have been kept, Belt now owns the longest at-bat along with Angels pitcher Jaime Barria.
In honor of this historic achievement, I’m here to break down the events as they happened.