Red Sox Hold Strikeout Mark Along With the Series Trophy If the Mighty Casey, baseball's most famous mythical character, were to come to life, he would fit right in with the world champion Boston Red Sox. Throughout the playoffs, the Red Sox kept swinging and missing, looking overmatched against the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. But somehow, despite a constant stream of strikeouts, Boston kept winning. It may not have been pretty, but it was enough to secure the team's eighth World Series title and third in the last 10 seasons. On Wednesday, Michael Wacha and six relievers for the Cardinals combined to strike out nine Red Sox batters. That continued a trend as Boston struck out 165 times in 16 playoff games, beating out the 2010 San Francisco Giants for the most by a team in a single postseason. The team's 59 strikeouts in six games against St. Louis followed an American League Championship Series in which Boston struck out 73 times in six games against Detroit, setting the record for a postseason series. While Little League coaches everywhere were very likely cringing throughout Boston's championship run, high strikeout numbers have become standard fare. Since 1903, just seven teams have struck out as many as 130 times in a postseason, but each of the last four World Series winners has surpassed that mark. All postseason records of recent vintage come with an asterisk as teams can play in as many as 20 playoff games, whereas until 1969, teams played in a maximum of seven playoff games in all but four seasons (in 1903, 1919, 1920 and 1921 the World Series was a best-of-nine). Even with that in mind, Boston's average of 10.3 strikeouts a game was off the charts. Contrast that with the 1927 Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that holds what could be an unbreakable record, striking out just seven times in the postseason. To be fair to modern teams, Pittsburgh played just four postseason games that season in a losing effort against the Yankees. Despite setting team records for strikeouts in the postseason and strikeouts in a playoff series, Boston's hitters failed to set any notable individual records. Mike Napoli paced the team with 21 strikeouts in the playoffs, becoming the seventh batter to strike out 20 or more times in a postseason. The record was set by Alfonso Soriano of the Yankees, who struck out 26 times in the 2003 postseason. Perhaps most impressively, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, one of Boston's catchers, struck out 19 times in just 32 at-bats. The conventional thinking has always been that dominant pitching is the best recipe for postseason success, but this Red Sox team was dominated at times by the Tigers and the Cardinals, and it did not seem to matter. There may have been no joy in Mudville when the Mighty Casey struck out, but in Beantown a record number of strikeouts was nothing to cry about.