There are exactly three weeks until the 89th Major League Baseball All-Star Game and according to MLB’s most recent fan balloting update, two Red Sox are in line to start.
Mookie Betts leads all American League outfielders in votes and trails only Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve overall. Boston’s premier slugger, J.D. Martinez, is the leading vote-getter at designated hitter, leading the Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton by nearly a million votes.
Betts, an All-Star in each of the last two seasons, enters Tuesday’s game with a .338 average, only trailing Altuve, and despite missing 13 games with an oblique strain, still ranks third in runs (58), third in WAR (4.4), and is tied for seventh in home runs (19), according to FanGraphs.
After a lengthy free agency stalemate, Martinez is making good on his 5-year $110 million contract so far in 2018. The 30-year-old paces the league with 60 RBI and his 23 home runs are tied with Mike Trout for the league lead. This would be Martinez’s second all-star selection, but first as a starter, as he was named a reserve in 2015 while playing for the Detroit Tigers.
Boston is the only American League team with more than one projected starter.
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This is the third and final voting update before voting ends on July 5 and fans can vote up to five times per day up to a total of 35 ballots.
Fan balloting is only used to select the starting position players in each league, and one reserve player through the Final Vote, while pitchers and bench players are chosen by a combination of player and coaches’ voting.
Red Sox pitchers Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel are likely All-Star selections, while outfielder Andrew Benintendi looks to have a shot at a reserve role.