CONWAY – Coastal Carolina baseball’s Tommy La Stella is a finalist for the inaugural Google MLB All-Star Starters Election which allows the fans to pick the starters at each position for this year’s 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star Game presented by Mastercard on Tuesday, July 9, at Progressive Field in Cleveland. 

The Starters Electionbegins Wednesday, June 26, at noon ET and runs through Thursday, June 27, at 4 p.m. ET. The winners will be unveiled on ESPN on Thursday night starting at 7 p.m. ET. All-Star pitchers and reserves will be announced on Sunday, June 30, at 5:30 p.m., also on ESPN.

Playing for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim this season, La Stella is having a career year. The sixth-year major leaguer is hitting .297 with a career-high 15 home runs and 43 RBIs as the everyday second basemen. He has also posted career numbers in RBIs (43), runs (46) and total bases (129).

An eighth-round pick in the 2011 MLB Draft by the Atlanta Braves, La Stella was a unanimous All-American in 2011 for the Chanticleers. Named the 2011 Big South Player of the Year, La Stella was also a 2011 ABCA All-Region first team pick and earned a spot on the All-Big South first team in both 2010 and 2011.

In his two years at Coastal, La Stella hit .388 with 28 home runs, 29 doubles and 136 RBIs over 125 games played. His .650 career slugging percentage ranks first all-time in CCU history, while he also ranks third all-time Coastal history in on-base percentage (.463), fifth in batting average (.388) and 11th in home runs (28).

How can fans vote?

There are two ways:

1.    On MLB platforms, including MLB.com, all 30 club sites (www.MLB.com/angels) and the MLB At Bat and MLB Ballpark mobile apps.

2.    On Google Search, fans can vote for any player on the ballot by entering a player’s name (for example, “Tommy La Stella“), and that will allow you to vote for that player directly from the search results. Alternately, fans can go directly to the Google ballot or enter searches such as “MLB All-Star Ballot” or “MLB vote” or “MLB All-Star vote” in the search bar. These searches will trigger a full All-Star ballot within the search results.

The combined vote totals from these various platforms will determine the ballot winners.

Courtesy: Coastal Carolina Athletics