Longest MLB Games-Played Streaks, 1988-2025

All-time context, cited not derived: the recognized major-league record is Cal Ripken Jr.'s 2,632 consecutive games played with the Orioles from May 30, 1982 through September 19, 1998. The run began before the 1988-2025 coverage here, so Ripken appears in the table with his in-coverage run of 1,705 games from opening day 1988 and a “may extend before 1988” note; the full 2,632 is the cited external mark, never a derived row.

Derivation: a player is credited with a game when he appears on a lineup card in the record: in the starting lineup (including the starting pitcher) or entering as a substitute (pinch-hitter, pinch-runner, defensive replacement or relief pitcher). This is what games-played streaks require that batting lines cannot show: a defensive replacement or pinch-runner who never bats still played. A streak breaks at the first game his club played without him, and the club game that breaks it can sit in a later season: sitting out games early in the next season, or an entire season lost to injury, breaks a streak exactly like an in-season absence. Only days with no club game never break one, so an off day, a doubleheader sweep he played in, and the off-season itself never end a streak. A club change continues the streak, matching the official record-keeping, with one disclosed limit: the lineup record carries no transaction dates, so games his NEW club played between the acquisition and his first appearance for it cannot be checked against the streak; those runs are listed as continuous even though official record-keeping would break them at a new-club game missed before his debut for that club. Games his old club plays after he leaves never count against him.

Honesty limits, disclosed per row: coverage is the complete play-by-play era only, 1988 through 2025, so a streak that may have begun before 1988 is flagged and its length is a floor, not the full streak; a streak still alive when the 2025 season ended is flagged as such. Every one of the 1,847,535 batter lines from the hitting-streaks pipeline is also a lineup appearance here (zero missing), and every player-season appearance count matches the independent Lahman games record except 21 of 47,351 player-seasons, each differing by a single game (0.04 percent, listed in the artifact receipts).