Little League caps how many pitches a player can throw in a day by league age — 50 for ages 6–8, 75 for 9–10, 85 for 11–12, and 95 for 13–16 — and every outing triggers a required number of calendar days of rest based on how many pitches were actually thrown. Both tables come from Regulation VI of the official Little League playing rules, and both are enforced during the regular season, not left to a coach's judgment.
The daily maximums by league age
| League age | Max pitches per day | |---|---| | 6–8 | 50 | | 9–10 | 75 | | 11–12 | 85 | | 13–16 | 95 |
"League age" is not the player's age on game day — it's the age Little League assigns from its official baseball age chart, which for baseball works out to the player's age as of August 31 of the current season. A player who turns 13 in July still competes (and pitches) as a 12-year-old all season.
The rest-day tables
For pitchers of league age 14 and under, the official thresholds are:
- 1–20 pitches — no rest required
- 21–35 pitches — 1 calendar day of rest
- 36–50 pitches — 2 calendar days
- 51–65 pitches — 3 calendar days
- 66 or more pitches — 4 calendar days
Ages 15–16 get slightly higher thresholds: no rest through 30 pitches, then 1 day at 31–45, 2 days at 46–60, 3 days at 61–75, and 4 days at 76+.
On top of the tables, Little League adds a blanket rule: no player may pitch on three consecutive days under any circumstance — even if each outing stayed under the no-rest threshold.
A worked example
An 11-year-old starts on Tuesday and throws 48 pitches. Three things follow directly from the tables:
- He was legal all game — his daily maximum at league age 11 is 85 pitches, so he finished with 37 still available.
- 48 pitches lands in the 36–50 band, which requires 2 calendar days of rest: Wednesday and Thursday off.
- He's eligible to pitch again Friday. If he'd thrown 3 more pitches — 51 — the band jumps to 3 days and Friday becomes Saturday.
That last point is why coaches manage pitch counts to the thresholds, not just the daily cap: pitch number 51 costs a full extra day of eligibility. You can check any age-and-count combination in the Little League Pitch Count Calculator, which applies these exact tables and flags when a count crosses the daily maximum.
The mid-batter exception
A pitcher who reaches the daily maximum in the middle of an at-bat isn't yanked mid-count. Regulation VI lets him keep pitching until one of three things happens: the batter reaches base, the batter is retired, or the third out is made. Every pitch thrown during that finish still counts — a pitcher who hits 85 mid-batter and finishes at 89 has 89 pitches on the day for rest-day purposes.
The pitcher–catcher restrictions
The rules also tie pitching and catching together, because both positions load the throwing arm:
- A player who has caught four or more innings is not eligible to pitch that calendar day.
- A player who caught three innings or fewer, then moved to the mound and threw 21 or more pitches (31 or more for league ages 15–16), may not return to catcher that calendar day.
Both restrictions are stated in the same Regulation VI rules page as the pitch limits.
Regular season only — tournaments differ
Everything above is the regular-season regulation. The International Tournament — All-Stars, the road to Williamsport — runs on its own pitching eligibility rules published in the tournament rulebook, and other youth organizations (PONY, Cal Ripken, USSSA, high school federations) publish entirely different limits. USA Baseball and MLB also publish the parallel Pitch Smart guidelines, which many non–Little League organizations adopt. If your league isn't chartered Little League, check which rule set it actually plays under before applying these tables.