While the very top of the 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame writers’ ballot barely moved, the good times rolled in the middle class.

On a day when no players gained the required 75 percent of votes, the most encouraging days came from a quintet of players who placed fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. Third baseman Scott Rolen, the fourth-place guy, registered the largest increase, 17.6 percentage points, going to 52.9 percent in his fourth year. With six years left, Rolen now looks like a strong candidate to win election.

Other big winners: Rockies icon Todd Helton (third year), who leapt 15.7 percentage points to 44.9; former Mets closer Billy Wagner (sixth year), who climbed 14.7 points to 31.7; center fielder Andruw Jones (fourth year), who increased 14.5 points to 33.9; and Gary Sheffield (seventh year), the former slugger for the Yankees and Mets among many other clubs, who enjoyed a 10.1 percentage-point pickup to 40.6.

The top-three finishers — Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — each climbed less than 2 percent, and the nuclear trio gets just one more year on the writers’ ballot, unless the Hall accedes to Schilling’s wish to be removed from the writers’ ballot immediately. Shortstop Omar Vizquel (fourth year), meanwhile, fell from 52.6 percent to 49.1 upon revelations of domestic-violence allegations, a telling message from the voters. Vizquel was the only returning candidate to drop in percentage.

Beloved Yankee Andy Pettitte, in his third year, experienced a slight uptick from 11.3 percent to 13.7, ensuring that he’d stay on the ballot. The left-hander joined Jeff Kent (32.4, eighth year), Manny Ramirez (28.2, fifth year), Sammy Sosa (17, ninth year) and Bobby Abreu (8.7, second year) as down-ballot holdovers who didn’t enjoy large surges of support.

A trio of first-year candidates — southpaw Mark Buehrle (11), outfielder Torii Hunter (9.5) and right-hander Tim Hudson (5.2) — passed the 5 percent level to return to next year’s ballot.