Wong Closing Gap in NL All-Star Voting

St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong is making a strong push to become the first Hawai’i-born baseball player to be voted in as a starter in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The Hilo-born Wong remains in second place in voting among National League second baseman. The gap between Wong and leader Dee Gordon of Miami continues to tighten, however, after the third week of voting results were released.

MLB announced that Gordon holds a lead of just less than 113,000 votes over Wong. Gordon, who enters Tuesday’s games with the National League lead in batting average (.366), has gained 2,226,127 fan votes. The Marlins’ second baseman is not shy to flash his speed on the bases, tallying 20 stolen bases, which is good for second in the NL.

Wong enters Wednesday’s game  with a .307 batting average. He has seven home runs, including a solo homer yesterday in a loss to the Colorado Rockies, and 27 runs batted in. He has earned 2,113,069 votes.

A week ago, Wong was behind Gordon by 345,066. That number has sliced considerably in just seven days.

Behind Gordon and Wong is San Francisco’s Joe Panik (1,159,514), Howie Kendrick of the Los Angeles Dodgers (803,064), and Washington’s Yunel Escobar (699,988).

The MLB All-Star Game will be held July 14 at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio. It will be televised by local FOX affiliate KHON-TV and broadcast on radio by ESPN Radio stations in Hilo and Kona.