All-Star rosters for the July 16 game at Citi Field were announced Saturday afternoon and the Tigers currently have six representatives.  Miguel Cabrera will start at third base while Prince Fielder, Jhonny Peralta, Torii Hunter, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander will join him on the AL Roster.

Cabrera is very deserving of the All-Star selection, his first start in the game, but the addition of Justin Verlander was somewhat surprising.  Verlander’s stats haven’t been Verlander-like this season as he is 9-5 with an ERA of 3.54 and a WHIP of 1.36.  These numbers aren’t awful but if anyone other than Jim Leyland was selecting the pitchers for the All-Star game I don’t think JV would have made the list.

This isn’t a dig at Verlander or saying that he doesn’t deserve to be on the team.  He is still the best pitcher in baseball when he is on and after fixing an issue in his mechanics he may have found that form again.  His last start against the Blue Jays looked more like the JV of old as he went 7 innings of three-hit baseball, with five strikeouts and two walks.  Hopefully Verlander can return to his old form because the combo of him and Scherzer would be lights out come the playoffs.

The Tigers do have a chance to get another player to the All Star Game, as reliever Joaquin Benoit is in the final vote.  Detroit has set up the Twitter hashtag #BackBenoit as a way for fans to get out and vote for the Tigers closer/set-up man.  Benoit is up four other set up guys, Toronto’s Steve Delabar, Yankees’ David Robertson, Rangers’ Tanner Scheppers and Boston’s Koji Uehara.  This list lacks star power so it will be up to each teams fans to get out and support their player to join the roster as well.

So what do you think Tigers fans, should JV be a member of the All Star team this season or is he in on name alone?  Let us know at DetroitSportsBloggers.com or on Facebook and Twitter.