Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury, a Madras High School product, is hitting .310 and has stolen 24 bases this season.

The good news for Jacoby Ellsbury is that he has climbed to fourth place among American League outfielders in the latest fan voting for the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The bad news for the Central Oregon native is that only the top three vote-getters will be named AL starters for the July 12 Midsummer Classic at Chase Field in Phoenix.

According to MLB.com, updated voting announced this week showed Ellsbury, a 27-year-old center fielder for the Boston Red Sox, with a total of 2,249,323 votes.

That’s 151,085 votes behind Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton, who was fourth with 2,400,408 votes.

Toronto’s Jose Bautista was leading all AL outfielders — and all vote-getters in both the American and National leagues — with 4,156,940 votes. Bautista was followed in the AL outfield by Curtis Granderson of the New York Yankees with 3,473,227 votes.

Carl Crawford, Ellsbury’s Boston teammate, was fifth on the AL outfield list with 1,789,097 votes.

In his fifth big league season, Ellsbury is bidding to be selected to an All-Star team for the first time. The former Madras High School and Oregon State University standout currently has a batting average of .306 over 75 games. Ellsbury also had eight home runs, 38 runs batted in, 54 runs scored, and a league-leading 24 stolen bases in 34 attempts.

Defensively, Ellsbury had yet to commit an error this season in 186 fielding chances.

Fans can cast their votes for All-Star starters online or via a mobile device at MLB.com until 8:59 p.m. PDT on Thursday, June 30. All-Star managers will select pitchers and reserves. All-Star rosters will be announced during the 2011 All-Star Game Selection Show on TBS on July 3.

On the web

Visit www.mlb.com to vote for the American League and National League All-Star teams.