The Major League Baseball season typically lasts about six months. It can be a grind, as many teams must withstand adversity for weeks and weeks on end to have a shot at the postseason. But how many MLB games are there in a regular season? Here’s a look at the full number that teams play every year, plus whether the number’s been fixed over the decades.

Related: What is the MLB minimum salary for players?

Number of MLB Games in a Regular Season

There are 162 scheduled games in an MLB regular season.

While there may be some exceptions — the biggest one being potential rainouts — as to how many games are completed, each team is scheduled to play 162 games every regular season.

Before 2022, it was possible to play a 163rd game if it was needed to sort out a playoff race. However, that is no longer the case. MLB amended the rules after 2021, meaning that playoff ties are now decided via tiebreakers.

Has it always been 162?

No, the number of games in an MLB season has not always been 162.

There have been many seasons over the years in which 162 games were not played. For example, the 2020 campaign only saw MLB teams play 60 games due to the pandemic.

In 1995, only 144 games were played due to the fallout from the 1994-95 player strike. That came 14 years after teams played anywhere from 103 to 111 games due to a players’ strike.

But before 1961, MLB teams only played 154 games. The American League went to 162 games in 1961 after expansion, an important note given that it was also the year Roger Maris broke the record for most home runs in a single season. The NL followed the AL in 1962 and raised the number of games in a season to 162.