Voting for the 2013 All-Star game will finally close on Thursday at 11:59 p.m. I believe it started sometime in January.

It’s looking good for Reds’ first baseman Joey Votto. According to the story on Reds.com, when the tallies were last announced Votto had 3,622,608 votes, which is more than a half-million ahead of his closest competition, Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks. It’s simply a fact that Votto is the All-Star first baseman of the NL. This vote doesn’t prove it; it just reflects it.

But while Votto’s lead is increasing, Brandon Phillips’ lead at second base is actually shrinking. Phillips’ 3,411,839 votes only puts him a quarter of a million ahead of the Cardinals’ Matt Carpenter. Now, I appreciate that some people, especially Cardinals’ fans, really hate Phillips, but BP is the most fun second baseman to watch–maybe ever. It would be worth putting in a few minutes to cast your votes for Phillips just to give the rest of the country the treat that we all get most every day.

And that does it for the Reds’ starters you’re going to see on the team. Jay Bruce and Shin-Soo Choo are All-Stars in our hearts, but back-up is the best they can hope for this year. I don’t know if it might be different if they voted by position instead of lumping all the outfielders together. This one-outfield-position-fits-all system that they have going is just weird to me.

The rosters will be announced Saturday at 6:30 p.m. on a special All-Star Selection Show they’re airing on FOX. It’s sure to be unnecessarily long and overdramatic. You still have time affect those rosters: go to the All Star Game Ballot to cast your vote.

The Reds sent me an email this weekend to let me know that Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips are currently the leading All Star Game vote-getters in the NL for their positions. At that time, Votto had 1,569,477 votes. Who’s in second and how much does he trail by? The email didn’t go into that kind of detail.

Getting any kind of details on where the voting stands in the All-Star Game is like pulling teeth. Before I started writing this post I combed through a week’s worth of archives on MLB.com looking for the numbers without any luck. I did stumble upon this old press release, though:

For the first time ever, All-Star Game balloting updates will be revealed live on television over the weekend, as part of MLB national broadcasts on FOX and ESPN.

This Saturday, June 8th, and next Saturday, June 15th, FOX will exclusively reveal updated voting totals for the American League starters as part of its “Baseball Night in America” pre-game show at 7:00 p.m. ET before its slate of prime time games begins.

This Sunday, June 9th, and next Sunday, June 16th, ESPN will exclusively reveal updated voting totals for the National League starters during “Baseball Tonight” at 7:00 p.m. ET prior to its Sunday Night Baseball telecast.

Well that explains it. They’re not going to give away information for free online when they want to force you to watch FOX and ESPN for it. I’m only surprised that they didn’t put it on MLB Network.

I didn’t catch the numbers last weekend, and I probably won’t next weekend either, but I can guess that Votto is leading his spot by a wide margin. The Reds know that you can motivate this fan base to vote in mass quantities with a close race. It follows that a landslide victory will cause fans to shrug and figure the All Star situation is taken care of, so they’d want to keep a big lead quiet.

On the other hand, they did give the numbers for Phillips. At that time he had 1,541,720 and was leading the Giants’ Marco Scutaro’s 1,285,076. While not a for-sure lead, that’s not exactly the kind of challenge that Reds fans took on to get Votto in as the 25th man a couple years ago. Maybe we should aim for something a little less likely. See if we can get Ryan Ludwick voted in. He ought to be just about off the DL by then.

Joey Votto is clearly running away with the NL’s first base All Star position. So much so, that I think it’s easy to lose perspective. Here’s a couple facts to help increase the resolution on this number:

• Since last week’s tally, Votto has received over 1.3 million votes. The second-place vote getter has only 1.5 million votes for the entirety of the voting.
• Votto has about 3 times as many votes as the second-lace finisher, but he also has more votes than 2nd, 3rd, and 4th combined.
• If you were to try to single-handedly pull Lance Berkman into first place, it would take you 342 days of submitting one vote every 10 seconds, with no breaks for Skyline chili or sleeping.

So, I think Votto’s safe.

Brandon Phillips, on the other hand, is still lagging. He’s less than a million votes behind, but voting ends midnight Thursday. He really does deserve it, but with Tony LaRussa managing the NL team this year, he’s not likely to get in unless folks start putting in some serious clicking.

Have you done your clicking yet? All you have to do is go to MLB.com to fill out your ballot. You can vote 25 times per email address, and if you’re like me, you’ve got several email addresses, including one or two you would even give to MLB.

Tallies as of June 26, 2012:

FIRST BASE

• Joey Votto, Reds: 4,475,180
• Lance Berkman, Cardinals: 1,516,737
• Freddie Freeman, Braves: 1,462,586
• Brandon Belt, Giants: 1,291,982
• Ryan Howard, Phillies: 873,526

SECOND BASE

• Dan Uggla, Braves: 2,641,361
• Brandon Phillips, Reds: 1,870,966
• Jose Altuve, Astros: 1,479,652
• Rickie Weeks, Brewers: 1,202,051
• Omar Infante, Marlins: 1,093,119

OUTFIELD

• Matt Kemp, Dodgers: 4,118,524
• Carlos Beltran, Cardinals: 3,717,483
• Ryan Braun, Brewers: 3,168,617
• Melky Cabrera, Giants: 3,045,884
• Andre Ethier, Dodgers: 1,948,973
• Matt Holliday, Cardinals: 1,880,342
• Andrew McCutchen, Pirates: 1,685,543
• Angel Pagan, Giants: 1,613,948
• Hunter Pence, Phillies: 1,610,283
• Michael Bourn, Braves: 1,553,285
• Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies: 1,506,613
• Shane Victorino, Phillies: 1,365,023
• Jason Heyward, Braves: 1,322,217
• Jay Bruce, Reds: 1,195,031
• Martin Prado, Braves: 1,142,946

To see the tallies for the other positions, you can go to this story on MLB.com and scroll all the way to the bottom.

It’s All-Star vote status report day: my favorite days in June!

Joey Votto increased his lead over the second-place vote getter in the first base field. The person he’s beating has changed, though. Freddie Freeman of the Braves has overtaken Lance Berkman of the Cardinals for second place. But whereas Votto had 2.47 times as many votes as Berkman last Tuesday, he has 2.64 times as many votes as Freeman today.

Just more gaudy numbers for Votto.

Meanwhile, Brandon Phillips has finally gotten past the 1,000,000 votes mark, but he’s lost ground on first place Dan Uggla. I don’t know if there’s much hope for this race. Uggla has been a Reds killer for as long as I can remember. Phillips really is a rock star, though. He deserves a better showing.

In the outfield, Jay Bruce has fallen yet again. Fall any further, and he won’t be on the list anymore. Yipes.

You can make a difference for guys like Phillips and Bruce. All you have to do is cast your All-Star votes on MLB.com. It’s free, but the difference you make for one second baseman is all the difference in the world. Plus, maybe we can get Votto over 10,000,000.

Tallies as of June 19, 2012:

FIRST BASE

• Joey Votto, Reds: 3,151,032
• Freddie Freeman, Braves: 1,193,455
• Lance Berkman, Cardinals: 1,159,418
• Brandon Belt, Giants: 907,739
• Ryan Howard, Phillies: 677,368

SECOND BASE

• Dan Uggla, Braves: 2,054,920
• Brandon Phillips, Reds: 1,272,389
• Jose Altuve, Astros: 1,074,993
• Omar Infante, Marlins: 901,970
• Rickie Weeks, Brewers: 814,263

OUTFIELD

• Matt Kemp, Dodgers: 3,322,009
• Carlos Beltran, Cardinals: 2,652,980
• Melky Cabrera, Giants: 2,144,107
• Ryan Braun, Brewers: 2,118,925
• Andre Ethier, Dodgers: 1,517,218
• Matt Holliday, Cardinals: 1,374,004
• Hunter Pence, Phillies: 1,234,428
• Michael Bourn, Braves: 1,201,215
• Angel Pagan, Giants: 1,158,500
• Andrew McCutchen, Pirates: 1,151,403
• Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies: 1,120,406
• Jason Heyward, Braves: 1,049,769
• Shane Victorino, Phillies: 1,039,970
• Martin Prado, Braves: 893,995
• Jay Bruce, Reds: 893,101

To see the tallies for the other positions, you can go to this story on MLB.com and scroll all the way to the bottom.

Major League Baseball has again released the current count of votes for the All-Star Game, and not a whole lot has changed since last week. Joey Votto is still running away with the start at first; in fact, he’s extended his lead. He’s now got 2.5 times as many votes and the second-place vote getter Lance Berkman of the Cardinals.

Frankly, that kind of sucks. Joey Votto was the best National League first baseman before and couldn’t get voted in. Now suddenly there’s a vacuum of NL 1Bers and the field is so thin the second place guy isn’t even actively playing. Votto deserves to have beaten real competition for this honor. I hope he has 10 times the number of votes of second place when this is all done.

Brandon Phillips remains in second place behind Dan Uggla of the Braves, and he’s lost a little bit of ground in that titanic struggle. Jay Bruce has lost quite a bit of ground in the outfielder contest, dropping from ninth to fourteenth.

A bright spot in the position changes this time around: Buster Posey of the Giants has overtaken that punk Yadier Molina of the Cardinals. If you haven’t cast your votes yet, why not consider Posey? Sure, it’s ideal to vote for a Red, but I think I might make an exception in this case. Surely Ryan Hanigan will understand.

You can vote up to 25 times per email address by going to the MLB website.

Tallies as of June 12, 2012:

FIRST BASE

• Joey Votto, Reds: 2,108,725
• Lance Berkman, Cardinals: 851,373
• Freddie Freeman, Braves: 828,759
• Brandon Belt, Giants: 563,708
• Bryan LaHair, Cubs: 514,809

SECOND BASE

• Dan Uggla, Braves: 1,341,088
• Brandon Phillips, Reds: 885,250
• Omar Infante, Marlins: 737,715
• Jose Altuve, Astros: 700,640
• Rickie Weeks, Brewers: 642,184

CATCHER

• Buster Posey, Giants: 1,713,839
• Yadier Molina, Cardinals: 1,576,199
• Carlos Ruiz, Phillies: 1,191,194
• Brian McCann, Braves: 1,012,743
• Jonathan Lucroy, Brewers: 588,710

OUTFIELD

• Matt Kemp, Dodgers: 2,589,464
• Carlos Beltran, Cardinals: 1,782,831
• Ryan Braun, Brewers: 1,553,356
• Melky Cabrera, Giants: 1,357,461
• Andre Ethier, Dodgers: 1,142,312
• Matt Holliday, Cardinals: 951,652
• Hunter Pence, Phillies: 861,555
• Michael Bourn, Braves: 768,049
• Shane Victorino, Phillies: 733,310
• Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies: 728,903
• Andrew McCutchen, Pirates: 728,522
• Angel Pagan, Giants: 722,820
• Jason Heyward, Braves: 717,121
• Jay Bruce, Reds: 655,098
• Martin Prado, Braves: 560,943

To see the tallies for the other positions, you can go to this story on MLB.com and scroll all the way to the bottom.