David Wright learned his lesson last year: Never turn your back on a Panda.
Even as yesterday's All-Star ballot update showed the Mets third baseman with an 842,186 vote advantage on the Giants' Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval heading into the final days of fan voting for the Midsummer Classic, Wright has been burned before.
Last year, Wright led Sandoval by about 460,000 votes with less than a week remaining in the voting. Sandoval ended up winning the starting job at third base by 1.6 million votes.
"So it's far from over," Wright said before the Mets faced the Diamondbacks last night. "Hopefully I can hang on because it would mean so much to me with the game here [at Citi Field]. I have my fingers crossed."
Neil Miller
David Wright
Wright, who entered play yesterday batting .306 with 12 homers and 42 RBIs, had 4,452,282 votes, according to the tally released yesterday. Sandoval (3,610,096), the Cardinals' David Freese (2,376,121), the Braves' Chris Johnson (1,234,095) and the Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman (1,072,563) were in the rear-view mirror at third base. Voting will continue until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow, with official rosters revealed on Saturday.
Wright credited the Mets for aggressively marketing his candidacy. That included entering discussions with the dating website "Cougar Life" — whose members had previously voted Wright as "Hottest Cub" — to launch a vote campaign for Wright. Team officials eventually nixed the idea of a partnership.
"[The Mets] have gone above and beyond, that's for sure," Wright said. "I've thanked everybody that I can. If we finish this off, I would love to go thank as many people as I can, because without them who knows?
"The whole organization, everybody from players trying to tweet stuff out and the marketing and Jay [Horwitz] in the public relations to the front office has helped. The security and clubhouse guys coming to me and saying they voted and told all their friends to vote. It's been pretty cool."
Matt Harvey is a strong candidate to be selected by manager Bruce Bochy as the NL's starting pitcher, putting the Mets in position to have two starters in the first All-Star Game hosted by the team since 1964.
Wright has been named captain of the NL team for the Home Run Derby the night before the All-Star Game, but said he has not yet decided on which three players he will select to join him. The Yankees' Robinson Cano is the AL captain and will also select three players.
"I've spoken to a few guys, but there's a lot more guys that I want on the team than I can have on the team," Wright said. "The guys that I have talked to have definitely been interested. There's probably 10 guys I would like to ask, but I only have three [selections]."
Wright said he expects to speak with MLB officials tomorrow about the parameters for selecting his Home Run Derby team.
"The other thing is, obviously guys would be more willing to do the Home Run Derby if they are on the [All-Star] team," Wright said. "If it were me, I doubt anybody would ask me to be on the Home Run Derby team, but if they were to ask me, I would probably have to be on the All-Star team. I'm not sure if anybody wants to fly up here for just the one day."
mpuma@nypost.com
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