Those footsteps that Colorado Rockies SS Troy Tulowitzki hears is New York Mets SS Jose Reyes coming up behind him in the 2011 MLB All-Star voting. Once seen as a lock to start for the National League, Tulowitzki will now be lucky to hold off the surging Reyes.
Over the last two weeks, the Mets spark plug has cut his deficit in half. Reyes had been 586,956 votes behind Tulowitzki before cutting that number to 413,171 last week. Now with just hours of voting left, there are just 244,832 votes separating the two.
Tulowitzki is more than worthy of the starting All-Star spot, hitting .276 with 15 HRs and 50 RBI entering Tuesday's action. However, there are few hotter hitters than Reyes in all of baseball. The Mets SS is leading the majors with a .341 average and 14 triples to go along with 32 RBI and 28 stolen bases.
Either way, both players will be representing their teams July 12th at Chase Field in Phoenix. We will find out which will be starting the game and which will be starting on the bench when both rosters are announced on TBS this Sunday.
David Wright and Carlos Beltran were in the running for a spot on the team early in the voting but have since fallen far behind the leaders. The injured Wright is in fourth place (1,763,940 votes back) while Beltran is in eighth (1,296,603 from the third and final starting slot).
Voting will wrap up Thursday night at 11:59pm and fans can vote up to 25 times per email address.