San Francisco Giants: All-Star Update Part 2

The latest update on the official All-Star Voting came out this week, and there were a lot of San Francisco Giants on the move.

Bryce Harper still leads all vote-getters, as he obviously should due to his non-human like slugging this season.

While the American League has become an absolute joke of a fan vote, with a Royals player leading at every position, the Giants and the rest of the National League are looking much more tempered and unsurprising.  The Royals fans are about to put a second-basemen batting .221 over much more deserving candidates, and an aging outfielder who has played in just 20 games this season is challenging other Royals teammates for the third outfielder spot. But enough about that, back to the team at hand; the Giants.

The San Francisco Giants went on a huge tear, followed by laying an egg at home recently. Their All-Star chances grew and then fell as their winning streak soon turned into a losing streak. Now, let’s go position by position and review the standings.

Catcher Buster Posey has been locked in a close contest with fellow catcher Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals. They have traded leads in each of the first four official numbers updates from the MLB. Posey has looked great as of late, and likely will make the team no matter who wins the starting job.

At first base, it’s Paul Goldschmidt‘s world and we are just living in it. He has looked amazing this year, and is now almost a million votes ahead of  Adrian Gonzalez. Brandon Belt had a dismal start to his season, but after turning it around in late May, is now solidly in fifth place and within range of the likes of Anthony Rizzo of the Cubs.

At shortstop, Brandon Crawford trails Jhonny Peralta of the Cardinals, the NL version of the Royals, by well over a million votes. Other than average, he has similar numbers as Peralta, and is likely to make the team, so fans shouldn’t be too worried.

At second, Joe Panik of the Giants ranked fifth in the first round of voting, and has been consistently in third place ever since. The sizzling Dee Gordon of the Marlins and Kolten Wong of the Cardinals are locked in a relatively close battle, with it being either player’s position to lose.

While Panik doesn’t look to be in a position to win the spot this year, he’s looked very impressive and will likely compete for the starting job many times in the next few years.

As for third base, Giants fans know plenty well by now that no Giant will be starting there. After the veteran brought in for the job lost it and was sent down to Sacramento, his replacement Matt Duffy has looked great, but doesn’t get much national attention and it’s all but too late to campaign to get him any.

Like Panik, Duffy has shown he is ready to be a major league player, and is likely going to be the full-time third basemen for the next several years at this rate.

Now for the outfielders, where the top three vote-getters are the starters. The Giants have three outfielders in the top ten, but only one seems likely to make it.

Nori Aoki officially overtook the mighty slugger Giancarlo Stanton, which made some people very unhappy and led to cries of Royals fans stepping over to the National League to vote for Aoki, a fan favorite for the Royals last season.

Hunter Pence has unfortunately never been 100 percent due to his broken arm, and has only been able to play in 18 games so far in 2015. While he is still in 10th place in the latest voting update, he would be replaced on the team if he were to somehow be selected.

Angel Pagan is in ninth place, but behind such a talented group it’s hard to imagine him making any big surges this late into the voting.

At this point in the game it may be too late to get anybody that legendary write-in push, but there are several Giants players who are locked in close battles for the starting jobs in the latest round of voting.

Get out and vote fans, you have until July 2nd! Get those Giants to Cincinnati!

Next: Making Joe Panik's Case For The Mid-Summer Classic