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Voting for the All-Star Game starters is one of those popularity contests that even the best Orioles are always destined to lose. Buried on a crappy team, their best players do not get the media attention and are ignored... oh, excuse me, I was reading off an old script. Voting for All-Star Game starters is still a popularity contest, but now the Orioles have some supporters.
Major League Baseball released the results through today on its website today. There are a number of surprises, the biggest of which is that Chris Davis leads all AL first basemen in the voting, with nearly 1.2 million votes and a lead of about 120,000 votes over Prince Fielder of Detroit. Voting runs through July 4.
Adam Jones is also in position to be a starter in the present voting, taking second place among outfielders with nearly 1.2 million votes himself. He trails Mike Trout of Los Angeles by just shy of 9,000 votes for the top spot, with the top three being named starters. Torii Hunter of the Tigers is in the third starter spot, nearly 400,000 votes behind Jones.
Other Orioles are in striking distance of starting spots as well. Nick Markakis (about 600,000 votes) and Nate McLouth (about 550,000 votes) are in 6th and 7th place among outfielders, respectively. Matt Wieters, Manny Machado, and J.J. Hardy are all runners-up for their positions. Wieters trails Joe Mauer by about 150,000 votes and Hardy trails Elvis Andrus by a mere 10,000 votes.
Machado has the misfortune of trailing Miguel Cabrera, who is the leading vote-getter with about 1.5 million votes. While he's in second for third basemen, Machado has fewer than half of Cabrera's vote total. He is still more than worthy of an All-Star selection and it will be a major snub if he does not end up on the roster.
In the "Who let these idiots vote?" category, Brian Roberts places 5th among second basemen with nearly 300,000 votes.
Robinson Cano leads for second basemen with about 1.2 million votes received. David Ortiz is the leading vote-getter at designated hitter, with a little over a million votes. Steve Pearce is not in the top five.