Before last season, the Kansas City Royals hadn't reached the postseason since 1985. They also only had eight winning seasons over that 29-year span. Now they're one of the most popular teams in the MLB.
In fact, if the 2015 All-Star Game voting ended today, seven Royals would be starting for the American League team - catcher Salvador Perez, outfielder Lorenzo Cain, third baseman Mike Moustakas, shortstop Alcides Escobar, first baseman Eric Hosmer, outfielder Alex Gordon and designated hitter Kendrys Morales. These seven players are among the MLB's leaders in votes after the league released the third update on Monday, according to Austin Laymance of MLB.com.
Here are the official numbers for the leaders:
C Salvador Perez (KC) - 4,419,620 votes
OF Lorenzo Cain (KC) - 4,211,472 votes
3B Mike Moustakas (KC) - 4,046,726 votes
SS Alcides Escobar (KC) - 3,928,985 votes
OF Mike Trout (LAA) - 3,668,577 votes
1B Eric Hosmer (KC) - 3,551,005 votes
OF Alex Gordon (KC) - 3,393,134 votes
DH Kendrys Morales (KC) - 3,269,634 votes
2B Jose Altuve (HOU) - 2,809,731 votes
If the voting were to end today, that would be the AL team in this year's midsummer classic.
Here are the numbers for the players that come next in the voting for each position:
C Stephen Vogt (OAK) - 2,198,780 votes
1B Miguel Cabrera (DET) - 2,933,108 votes
2B Omar Infante (KC) - 2,650,416 votes
3B Josh Donaldson (TOR) - 2,329,742 votes
SS Jose Iglesias (DET) - 1,819,764 votes
OF Alex Rios (KC) - 2,311,122 votes
OF Adam Jones (BAL) - 1,955,897 votes
OF Michael Brantley (CLE) - 1,466,472 votes
DH Nelson Cruz (SEA) - 3,128,121 votes
There will be three more AL voting updates (June 15, June 22 and June 29) before the 2015 All-Star Game on July 14 in Cincinnati. Click here to submit your vote for this year's event.
The next NL voting update will be tomorrow and the next three will be June 16, June 23 and June 30.
The Royals' players are unlikely to lead in voting until the final day of voting, but seven starters were once elected to an All-Star team. In 1957 the Cincinnati Reds occupied seven starting spots in that year's All-Star event, but Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in a replaced two of the players with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron after an investigation revealed the Cincinnati Enquirer was printing out pre-marked ballots and sending them to readers of their Sunday paper to make the voting easier for Reds fans.
