National League All-Star Game ballot update – June 29th

On Monday afternoon, Major League Baseball released the latest ballot update for both the American League and the National League for the All-Star Game. For Pittsburgh Pirates’ fans, not much changed. Let’s start with the AL, where Kansas City fans may be falling behind in their voting.

Miguel Cabrera is starting over Eric Hosmer at first, Josh Donaldson is leading over Mike Moustakas at third, and Nelson Cruz has a slim lead over Kendrys Morales at DH. Omar Infante‘s lead at second base is growing slimmer as well. For the NL, there aren’t too many surprises.

The St. Louis Cardinals still have a good quantity of players competing to start at the All-Star Game. For our Pittsburgh Pirates, Francisco Cervelli still sits in the third spot for catchers, but if last year is any indication (four catchers made the All-Star team for the NL in 2014), that bodes well for the Venezuelan. He’ll be hard-pressed to make up the almost six million votes that he’d need to surpass Buster Posey to start the game, so his selection will more than likely be left up to NL manager Bruce Bochy.

While Andrew McCutchen still sits in fifth place for NL outfielders, he only sits a little over 500,000 votes behind Nori Aoki of the Giants for fourth place. Only the top three outfielders start the game, and making that top three could be a difficult, but not impossible task. Matt Holliday sits in the third position now (900,000 votes ahead of McCutchen), but he’s been on the disabled list for some time now and may not return in time for the All-Star Game on July 14th. After all, why would the Cardinals rush him back, considering their virtually insurmountable lead in the National League Central?

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If McCutchen can crack the top three of the vote, he will start. If not, he will have to be picked by Bochy as a reserve. But If Holliday can’t start the game, McCutchen might have a shot to start, especially if he gets more votes than Bochy’s own Aoki. Then again, why wouldn’t Bochy pick Aoki to start?

Starling Marte is the only other Pirate on this list, coming in at 14th among NL outfielders. Last year, seven outfielders made the team for the NL. Right now, Marte sits a little over 600,000 votes behind Jason Heyward for the seventh position among outfielders. But that doesn’t matter, as Bochy will be picking the best outfielders that he sees fit. Marte definitely has a chance to be one of them.

The voting closes soon, so take to your computers, phones, and tablets and #VoteCutch, #VoteCervelli, and #VoteMarte to push your Pittsburgh Pirates to the front of the pack! The All-Star starters will be announced next Sunday, July 5th, while the reserves, pitchers, and Final Vote candiates will be revealed next Monday, July 7th.

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