It's not just The Year of the Home Run in baseball but also the Year of the Strikeout, and there were 23 in this year's All-Star Game, including the final out of the game -- Andrew Miller's whiff of Cody Bellinger.

NL pitchers had 14 strikeouts to nine for their AL counterparts. The 14 are the fifth most by a team in a game in All-Star Game history (regardless of length of the game).

The strikeout barrage was highlighted by Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez, who became the first pitcher to have a four-strikeout, no-run stint in the All-Star Game since Pedro Martinez had five strikeouts in two innings in 1999. Carlos Martinez, who threw as fast as 101 mph on the radar gun (something he has done three times in the regular season), tied the Cardinals' mark for strikeouts in an All-Star Game, previously set by Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean in 1934.

Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen struck out three in the ninth inning, the first Dodgers pitcher to come out of the bullpen and strike out three in an inning in an All-Star Game since Fernando Valenzuela did in 1986.

Three American League pitchers struck out two -- Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel and Dellin Betances. Sale hit 100 mph on the TV radar gun, something he hasn't done in a regular-season game since he hit it six times in 2010, his rookie season. The only other time the Red Sox had two pitchers record multiple strikeouts in an All-Star Game was in 2007, when Josh Beckett and Jonathan Papelbon did it. Those Red Sox won the World Series.

Sale and Max Scherzer each had two strikeouts and it figured they would have a few. They combined for 351 strikeouts in the regular season, the most by two All-Star starting pitchers.

It was also a multi-strikeout day for a few hitters, most notably Giancarlo Stanton, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. It's the first time that a player struck out multiple times in front of his home fans at the All-Star Game since Pirates outfielder Jason Bay did at PNC Park in 2006.