All-Star update: Youk trails Teixeira by just over 1,000 votes

As the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry gets set to renew tonight at Fenway Park, there’s a subplot percolating that could add more fuel to the fire among fans.

In this week’s American League All-Star voting update, Mark Teixeira has jumped ahead of Kevin Youkilis as the leader at first base -- by a mere 1,209 votes. Texieira, who trailed Youkilis by nearly 94,000 in last week’s voting, vaulted ahead of him with a week that included 2 homers, 7 RBIs, and a .333 batting average. He has 13 homers in his last 28 games. Teixeira has a total of 833,960 votes to Youkilis’s 832,751.

Meanwhile, Jason Bay leads all AL outfielders in voting with just over 1.1 million votes. Dustin Pedroia is running in second place among second basemen, trailing former college teammate Ian Kinsler of the Rangers by just over 250,000 votes (Kinsler is at 1,173,494 to Pedroia’s 923,416).

Jason Varitek has dropped to third among catchers, trailing Joe Mauer and Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

Voting ends July 2. Cast your vote here.

(Editor’s note: Our own Tony Massarotti and Chad Finn debate the Youkilis vs. Teixeira issue in an ongoing Slugfest that you can check out here.)