By Jon Weisman
Yasiel Puig has widened his lead among outfielders in the latest National League All-Star balloting update.
Puig is now more than 200,000 votes ahead of second-palce Giancarlo Stanton and nearly 300,000 ahead of the next two outfielders, Carlos Gomez and Andrew McCutchen. Only Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowtizki has more NL votes than Puig.
The 23-year-old right fielder was out of the money when the initial tallies came in, but then surged to first place by about 50,000 votes last week.
Fans looking to see Puig start the game shouldn’t become complacent, however, as the voting can shift dramatically week to week.
Meanwhile, Adrian Gonzalez remains in first place among first basemen despite a 1-for-26 start to June, but Paul Goldschmidt is coming on. The Arizona slugger, who a week ago was in fourth place and more than 150,000 votes behind Gonzalez, has eliminated about a third of that deficit.
Dee Gordon, Juan Uribe and Hanley Ramirez all rank the same as last week. Gordon has increased his margin over Brandon Phillips of Cincinnati, but the Pirates’ Neil Walker reduced his gap from 165,000 votes to 121,000.
Two weeks ago, David Wright and Uribe were nearly even in third and fourth place among third basemen. But while Uribe has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, Wright has zoomed to the lead.
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