City Royals forward Bobby Witt Jr. expected to miss remainder of MLB season with back injury…
The latest voting update for this summer’s MLB All-Star Game has a pair of Kansas City Royals stars just outside first place at their positions for the American League team.
Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and catcher Salvador Perez are both in second place at their respective positions in the American League following MLB’s latest voting update. On Monday, the league shared that update with over 7 million ballots cast.
Witt Jr. trails Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson by more than 500,000 votes. Perez trails Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman by more than 600,000 votes. Both players trailed the duo of Orioles stars during the first voting update the league provided earlier this month.
Still, both Royals stars are in second place with two days remaining in Phase 1 of the voting. Once Phase 1 is complete, the top-two vote-getters at every positions — and the top six outfielders — will advance to Phase 2 of the voting, which begins Sunday, June 30.
Once Phase 2 re-sets, fans can vote only once per 24-hour period on MLB platforms. Importantly for the Royals stars who have a large deficit between them and the pair of Orioles stars they are trailing, vote totals from Phase 1 don’t carry over.
Witt Jr. and Perez are both relatively safely in second place at the moment, with Perez more than 600,000 votes ahead of New York Yankees catcher Jose Trevino and Witt Jr. more than 400,000 votes ahead of Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe.
Both Royals stars are having outstanding season for the team that sits at 43-37 and in a early-summer battle for a playoff position.
The winners at each position — and three outfielders in each league — will be revealed as All-Star starters on ESPN at 6 p.m. CT on July 3. Non-starters for the All-Star game will be announced at 4:30 p.m. CT on ESPN on Sunday, July 7.
