June 29 -- VOTING UPDATE

(To read more about the Phillies' pending decision on Thursday night's starter -- Drew Carpenter or Carlos Carrasco? -- please click here or scroll down to the next post.)

BY SCOTT LAUBER

Jimmy Rollins, it appears, won't start the All-Star Game.

In the final update before the All-Star voting results are released Sunday, Rollins has slipped farther behind Florida's Hanley Ramirez, the far more deserving shortstop candidate. Ramirez has widened his lead over Rollins to 254,257 votes, after leading by 154,016 votes last week. Of course, Rollins spent most of last week on the Phillies' bench, part of Charlie Manuel's plan to help him clear his mind before he raises his .211 batting average.

But while Rollins is fading (voting ends Friday), Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez continue to lead at their positions. Utley has 3,510,082 votes, well ahead of the Dodgers' Orlando Hudson (1,277,348) among second basemen and second-most to Albert Pujols (3,602,765) overall. Ibanez, meanwhile, leads outfielders with 2,970,139 votes despite being on the disabled list since June 18. He's comfortably ahead of Milwaukee's Ryan Braun (2,654,061), the Mets' Carlos Beltran (2,085,028), the Cubs' Alfonso Soriano (1,916,598) and Phillies teammate Shane Victorino (1,642,248), who needs some serious help from Hawaiian voters to climb into the top three.

Elsewhere, Ryan Howard continues to run a distant second at first base behind Pujols with 1,644,971 votes. Pedro Feliz (1,132,441) remains fourth among third basemen, where the Mets' David Wright is leading, and in proportion to his batting average, Carlos Ruiz has dropped out of the top five among catchers, a position still led by the Cardinals' Yadier Molina.

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Also, the Phillies have promoted lefty Yohan Flande to double-A Reading. Flande, 23, was 7-1 with a 2.52 ERA at single-A Clearwater and will pitch in the Futures Game next month in St. Louis after making the considerable leap this season from the rookie-level Gulf Coast League.