Ohtani Leads the Vote as Dodgers Land Four MLB All-Star Starters

The Los Angeles Dodgers will send four starters to this year's Major League Baseball All-Star Game, with Shohei Ohtani drawing more fan votes than any other player, ESPN reported. The starting position players for each league are chosen by fans, and this year's ballot tilted heavily toward Los Angeles.

Four Dodgers in the National League lineup

Ohtani was voted the National League's designated hitter, and three teammates joined him in the starting nine: Freddie Freeman at first base, Max Muncy at third and Andy Pages in the outfield. For Freeman, it is a 10th career All-Star selection.

The rest of the National League starters span several contenders. Drake Baldwin of the Atlanta Braves was voted in at catcher, with Ozzie Albies at second base for Atlanta and CJ Abrams of the Washington Nationals at shortstop. Juan Soto of the New York Mets and Brandon Marsh of the Philadelphia Phillies fill out the outfield alongside Pages.

The American League field

In the American League, the fan-voted starters are led by familiar names. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays, Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals and outfielders including Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels headline a lineup rounded out by Houston's Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter, per MLB. Reserves and pitching staffs, chosen through a mix of player voting and league selection, are set to be announced separately.

A Philadelphia homecoming

The All-Star Game returns to Philadelphia on July 14, at the Phillies' Citizens Bank Park, in a year when the city is also a focus of the country's 250th-anniversary events. It is the second time Philadelphia has hosted the game; the first came in 1976, during the United States' bicentennial, at the old Veterans Stadium.

Fan voting has long been the mechanism for choosing the All-Star starters, a system that rewards popularity as well as performance and, this year, delivered an unusually strong showing for the Dodgers. Whether that translates to bragging rights on the field will be settled in the midsummer exhibition itself.