First baseman Adrian Gonzalez is the lone Los Angeles Dodgers position player to appear in the top five in Major League Baseball’s first All-Star Game voting update for the National League.
Gonzalez is third among first baseman with 253,529 votes. He trails Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs (874,471 votes) and San Francisco’s Brandon Belt (271,670).
A Cubs position player also leads voting at second base (Ben Zobrist), third base (Kris Bryant) and shortstop (Addison Russell). Dexter Fowler, Jason Heyward and Jorge Soler rank in the top six among outfielders. The Cubs enter Wednesday’s game against the Dodgers with the best record in the Majors at 35-15.
Eight Dodgers were named to the All-Star Game ballot, released in April; Gonzalez, Yasmani Grandal, Howie Kendrick, Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig, Corey Seager, Justin Turner and Chase Utley. Per usual, pitchers are not selected by the fans and thus didn’t appear on the ballot or voting update.
Gonzalez is batting .299/.376/.418 with seven doubles, five home runs and 27 RBIs. He’s been particularly hot at the plate since returning from lower back tightness, hitting .357/.426/.452 (15-for-42) with one double, one home run and seven RBIs in the past 11 games (10 starts).
Six of the aforementioned eight Dodgers have previously been named to an All-Star Game, with the group combining to total 15 appearances in the annual Midsummer Classic. Utley leads the team with six selections, Gonzalez has five, and Grandal, Kendrick, Pederson and Puig each have one.
Gonzalez, Grandal, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Pederson represented the Dodgers last year. The 2016 MLB All-Star Game will be played on Tuesday, July 12 at Petco Park. Voting can be completed through June at dodgers.com/vote.
