In the context of baseball, a quality start is a statistic used to evaluate the performance of starting pitchers. A quality start occurs when a pitcher completes at least six innings in a game and allows no more than three earned runs. This means the pitcher has effectively kept their team in the game by limiting the opposition's scoring.
More specifically, to be considered a quality start, a starting pitcher must meet the following criteria:
The quality start metric was introduced in 1985 by sportswriter John Lowe as a way to measure the effectiveness of starting pitchers. Since then, it has become a widely accepted statistic in the world of baseball.
