As of this writing, I would bet the Red Sox will win the World Series. In beating the Saint Louis Cardinals, they will be recognized as the most accomplished team in baseball.

That’s the kind of team they have proved to be this season. To my mind, their success is owing, in large part, to one non-player. That’s John Farrell, their manager, who brought the team from the depths to American League champions.

Farrell molded a group of players who did not look that promising into a big winner. I don’t exactly know what form of magic he worked, but it has produced something better than could have been predicted.

If you feel tempted to question my sports writing credentials, you should know I can claim a long history of following the Red Sox.  It started in 1936 or so, when my father began to take me to their games.

Besides our trips to Fenway Park, we also often went to the Bee Hive, later known as Braves Field. There the National League team, then called The Bees, played, though never very successfully.

The best hitters were to be found at Fenway.  There I saw greats such as Jimmie Foxx, Joe Cronin (the player-manager!), and Ted Williams. Sox pitching was never quite good enough to steer them past the Yankees into first place, but their games were lively.

Speaking of lively, let me turn again toward the present team. Here I wish to recognize what this year’s Red Sox have accomplished over against the Detroit Tigers, their opponents in the American League championship series.

Like other fans galore, I celebrate what the Sox have achieved.  Earlier in the season I often doubted they could do it but now I acknowledge their achievements and wear their baseball cap with honor.

Despite all of this positive approach to Boston baseball, however, let me point out two problems in the current major league game.  They became more evident to me during the series with Detroit just concluded.

First, the rise of strikeout pitchers. In the six games of this series the Tiger pitchers  Scherzer, Sanchez, and Verlander, with the help of a few others, inflicted a total of 73 strikeouts on the Sox hitters.

And for their part, the Sox pitchers, led by Lester, Buchholz, and Lackey, struck out a lot of Tiger batters.

When you first see guys on the mound throwing the ball at almost one hundred miles an hour, it’s impressive. But even for this fan, it was not great fun to watch batters on both sides striking out, one by one.

This kind of pitching, to my mind, robs baseball of some of its interest. When batters are striking out most of the time, you don’t see much fielding. When you do, the infielders are handling easy chances and the outfielders are getting very little business.

This means that onlookers, whether in the stands or at home, miss much of what makes baseball fun to watch. Players do not steal bases because, most of the time, they are not on base.  Nor do you see surprising plays, as you do when hitters are able to respond to ordinary pitching.

What you do see is an eventual parade of relief pitchers, some of whom also have strong strikeout power.  But my main objection to relief pitchers is the time they take up. Sometimes it’s only to come in and pitch to a single batter.  They then depart to be replaced by another reliever who himself may pitch to only one hitter.

This makes games altogether longer than they should be.  Why should we fans have to watch for four-plus hours instead of the two that used to be common?