Well, the all-Royals lineup never happened, but the 2015 All-Star lineup still features a ridiculous about of Royal blue. Four members of the reigning AL champions were announced as All-Star starters on Sunday – Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, and Alex Gordon. But the leading vote getter in all of baseball wasn’t a Royal, and it wasn’t Mike Trout – it was Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson, who collected just over 14 million votes to edge out Trout, Perez, and Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, all of whom finished with over 13 million votes. Thankfully, Jose Altuve rallied to edge out Omar Infante to earn the start at second base, and Nelson Cruz held on to his slim lead over Kendrys Morales in the AL DH voting.
The National League rosters feature just one member of the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants – catcher Buster Posey. The St. Louis Cardinals and, shockingly, the Miami Marlins each saw two of their players get elected as starters – Matt Holliday and Jhonny Peralta for St. Louis, and Dee Gordon and the injured Giancarlo Stanton. The Cardinals could have had a third player elected, but Todd Frazier of the hometown Cincinnati Reds surpassed Matt Carpenter at third base during the last week of voting. Bryce Harper was the NL’s leading vote getting this year with 13 million votes, and was the only NL player to crack the ten million vote mark. Paul Goldschmidt rounds out the NL squad as the starter at first base.
Several starters voted in by the fans likely won’t be able to play in the game due to injuries – Miguel Cabrera, Giancarlo Stanton, and Matt Holliday – and will be replaced in the starting nine by one of the reserves announced tomorrow.
The full starting lineups for the AL and NL are below.
American League
C: Salvador Perez
1B: Miguel Cabrera*
2B: Jose Altuve
SS: Alcides Escobar
3B: Josh Donaldson
OF: Mike Trout
OF: Lorenzo Cain
OF: Alex Gordon
DH: Nelson Cruz
National League
C: Buster Posey
1B: Paul Goldschmidt
2B: Dee Gordon
SS: Jhonny Peralta
3B: Todd Frazier
OF: Bryce Harper
OF: Giancarlo Stanton*
OF: Matt Holliday*
Here are the final voting results in the American and National Leagues.
The final NL voting results are in for the #ASG: pic.twitter.com/hcobcPsQFk
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) July 5, 2015
Here are the AL final voting totals for the #ASG: pic.twitter.com/wpSgfrM7zT
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) July 5, 2015
The reserves and pitchers for both the AL and NL will be announced on Monday.
