Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki is looking for his second All-Star Game selection, and he's well on his way to making that happen: the first results were announced on Tuesday and we learned that he leads NL shortstops with 975,777 votes, second most in the National League.
Playing in the game, though, is another matter. Well, it was last year since he missed the game due to a fractured wrist. It was a freak accident when Alex Burnett threw that pitch to the plate, but such is baseball.
One might look at Tulowitzki's season line of .250/.326/.480 and think that he's getting the votes because he's a popular player, right? That batting average is terrible, they say, especially after hitting .315 in 2010. But Beyond the Boxscore points out that Tulowitzki might actually be getting better. He's cut his strikeout rate to 8.0 percent and is having fewer swings and misses individually. The drop in average could be mostly due to his BABIP falling from .327 to .224. The balls just aren't finding their way to drop for hits.
Albert Pujols leads all NL voting with 988,784 votes. The only other Rockies player to make the first early results release is outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, who came in at 11th for his position (337,728).