Renteria Loses Lead, Pujols Loses Ground In All-Star Voting
STLtoday.com
06/24/2003
Edgar Renteria lost his lead at shortstop and Albert Pujols is falling farther behind among outfielders in fan voting for the National League All-Star starters.
Third baseman Scott Rolen still has a whopping lead at third base, but that's about the only good news for the Cardinals.
Renteria led Atlanta's Rafael Furcal by 41,000 votes two weeks ago but now trails Furcal by 42,000 despite his .346 batting average, tied for second in the NL. Furcal is hitting .307.
Pujols, the major leagues' leading batter with a .384 average, is in fourth place among NL outfielders and has fallen 79,000 votes behind third-place Gary Sheffield of the Braves and second-place Sammy Sosa of Chicago.
Pujols also has 21 homers, 66 RBIs and a .720 slugging percentage. Sosa has 7 homers, 30 RBIs, a .294 batting average -- and recently served a seven-game suspension for using a corked bat.
The Braves also made big gains at second base, where Marcus Giles moved ahead of Houston's Jeff Kent, and at catcher, where Javy Lopez took the lead from Florida's Ivan Rodriguez.
Cards center fielder Jim Edmonds dropped to eighth in the outfield balloting with about 342,000 votes.
Online voting continues on MLB.com until July 2. The All-Star Game is July 15 at Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field.
Here are the National League leaders and their vote totals at each position, with Cardinals who made the top five at any position:
First base: 1. Jeff Bagwell, Houston, 379,713 . . . 4. Tino Martinez, Cardinals, 231,721
Second base: 1. Marcus Giles, Atlanta, 418,742
Shortstop: 1. Rafael Furcal, Atlanta, 526,630 . . . 2. Edgar Renteria, Cardinals, 483,765
Third base: 1. Scott Rolen, Cardinals, 713,710
Catcher: 1. Javy Lopez, Atlanta, 410,630 . . . 5. Mike Matheny, Cardinals, 187,814
Outfield: 1. Barry Bonds, San Francisco, 744,095; 2. Sammy Sosa, Chicago, 565,590; 3. Gary Sheffield, Atlanta, 565,177; 4. Albert Pujols, Cardinals, 486,197.
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