Manny Ramirez is currently 4th in All-Star balloting

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Drugs? What drugs?

Manny Ramirez might be serving a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, but he hasn’t been forsaken by All-Star voters. Ramirez is fourth among outfielders, with 442,763 votes in the first round of National League balloting, which was released today. He is only 34,080 votes behind third-place Carlos Beltran, who is in line for the final starting outfield spot. In fifth place is another drug cheat, Mike Cameron of Milwaukee (432,034 votes), who served a 25-game suspension at the start of last season.

Ryan Braun of Milwaukee (663,164) and Alfonso Soriano of Chicago (545,354) are 1-2 in voting among outfielders. Online voting started April 22, two weeks before Ramirez was handed the 50-game ban. Balloting concludes June 28.

The Dodgers are not expecting to start a campaign to encourage fans to vote for Ramirez, according to team spokesman Josh Rawitch.

Ramirez is the only Dodger with a solid shot right now at starting in the All-Star Game. Orlando Hudson (314,103) is third among second basemen, but he has less than half as many votes as Chase Utley of Philadelphia (675,596). Russell Martin (261,917) is fourth among catchers, but is almost 200,000 votes behind Yadier Molina of St. Louis (451,368).

More on Manny

With the Dodgers on the road for the rest of this week, Ramirez is expected to continue his midmorning workouts at Dodger Stadium.

Ramirez practiced today for just the second time since his May 7 suspension. Ramirez is lifting weights, doing agility drills, hitting against live pitching and doing some throwing, though most of that work takes place out of public view under the grandstands near the Dodgers clubhouse.

Ramirez has kept a low profile since his suspension, meeting once with owner Frank McCourt and once with his teammates, for less than 10 minutes, during the Dodgers’ recent trip to Miami. Ramirez can work out with the team when the Dodgers return home next week, but that isn’t likely to happen. Instead, he will probably continue his practices at the team’s spring training facility in Arizona. He isn’t eligible to play again until at least July 3.

-- Dylan Hernandez and Kevin Baxter