Where is the Love?

Our Tigers are currently lurking a game behind the Cleveland Indians with a record of 34-28. We are 6 games over .500, matching our season best. We have also won 10 of our last 12 games, making us one of the hottest (if not the hottest) teams in baseball. We are getting offensive production from nearly everyone (sorry Ryan Raburn) with a team OPS of .741. This means that not only are we getting on base but also hitting for power, and it has showed in recent games. Our starting rotation has pitched quality starts in over half of the games we've play this year. Alex Avila is the best hitting catcher in the American League. Miguel Cabrera has the fifth best batting average in the American League, followed closely by Juh-honny Peralta (!!!). Baby Brennan and Action Jackson have been on a hitting surge lately, hitting .342 and .341 respectively in their last ten games.   Rick Porcello is a man on a mission, going 5-1 with a 3.58 ERA in his last six games started after starting off 2-2 with an ERA of 4.25. Justin Brooks Verlander has been, typically, Justin Brooks Verlander.

So, we ask you: Where's the Love?

We can assure you: had the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, or San Francisco Giants done something comparable to these feats then everyone would be talking about it. And they have. The Red Sox and Phillies have both been outstanding this season, and they have gotten a  large amount of attention over it. For example, in the recent ESPN power rankings, the Tigers were ranked at a mediocre 15th, while the Yankees (33-26) were 1st, beating out the sensational Phillies (2nd) rotation and the then-red-hot Texas Rangers (4th) to name a few teams.

Not that some of these teams don't deserve the attention. They totally do. But so do we!!! Why is it that no one outside of the Tigers fanbase seems to appreciate our ragtag bunch of misfits? A forum in which this neglect is all too obvious is in the All-Star Fan Voting (a stupid thing to begin with; We don't really need the average Danny McDumbass to be voting all his fave Yankees into the game). Alex Avila is currently in third. Not bad, you say? Well consider the fact that he is 100,000 votes behind Joe Mauer, who has played NINE GAMES this year (NINE GAMES!!!!!!!!). Maybe even more ridiculous still is the fact that he is 600,000 (?!?!?) votes behind Russel Martin, who has a hefty (not) average of .238. Really, America? Really?

But can we even blame our ignorant populace? There are not nearly as many people who live in Detroit as compared to New York City, but if the schmucks at ESPN and other major sports media didn't ignore the Tigers as much as they do maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. For example, Juh-honny is hitting .313 and is over 1,000,000 votes behind Derek "Mr. 3000" Jeter. His batting average? A full .50 points lower than Juh-honny's at a robust .261. This is crap! And don't even get us started on poor, poor Miguel Cabrera. Wasn't his DUI notoriety enough to get him to at least second in the voting?! (Kidding. Kind of). If the people who are currently in first place in the starting lineup remain there, then we are probs losing the All-Star game, people. We're pretty freaking positive that A-Roid should not even be going to the game, let alone be starting.

Look. This isn't just a call-to-arms to vote for the Tigers. This is us saying that the Tigers deserve more recognition than they're getting. Hopefully within the next week we don't go on some crazy losing streak to completely make this post irrelevant, but we're pretty sure we won't. Frankly, we're proud of this Tigers, and we're sick of feeling like the only people who have noticed this team's ability are our own fans.

EDIT: Look who listened to us! It's definitely not the best article we've ever read (why Brennan?) but still. It's tough for us, being so influential.