Tigers' Colt Keith finally gets his overdue respect with MLB honors for July

Some Tigers fans might've written Colt Keith off too quickly when they saw his sub-.200 batting average in the middle of May and decided he wasn't worth the $28.6 million the Tigers promised him during the offseason, before he'd even gotten a major league at-bat. However, Keith has worked overtime since he fell into that pit, and has shaped up into one of the Tigers' best hitters since.

Since May 20, Keith is hitting .284 with a .831 OPS, and he's got seven doubles, three triples, 11 home runs and 29 RBI on top of that. During July, he put up his best stretch yet, with a .322 average and massive 1.048 OPS, buoyed by seven homers and 17 RBI.

All year long, MLB has seemed to be in the same boat as those naysayers within the Tigers' own fandom.

Graphics from MLB and MLB Network ranking rookie performances have repeatedly left Keith out, despite the fact that he's been hitting better than the likes of Wyatt Langford throughout the season.

However, baseball has finally decided to give Keith his due, it seems; he was named AL Rookie of the Month for his performance through July.

Colt Keith named AL Rookie of the Month for huge July for Tigers

It's true that Keith hasn't been quite as outstanding as the Orioles' Colton Cowser or the Red Sox's Wilyer Abreu throughout the season (Cowser was the AL's Rookie of the Month in April), but his name has been ignored far too much compared to Langford. Keith has also remained in the show longer than either Jackson Holliday or Heston Kjerstad, MLB's No. 1 and No. 32 overall prospects at the beginning of the season.

The Orioles, Red Sox, and Rangers all have a certain amount of caché. The Orioles have their insanely stacked farm system, the Red Sox are one of the winningest franchises in baseball, and the Rangers were last year's World Series champs. It could be some good old anti-Tigers bias, compounded by the fact that this team hasn't exactly shaped up the way anyone expected or hoped them to this season, that has led to Keith being unduly ignored.

However, hopefully this means that Keith is finally drawing some eyes and might even get meaningful consideration during Rookie of the Year voting after the season concludes. He's had one of the best arcs of any of this year's rookies, and he deserves all of the accolades he can get.