The people spoke, and they had it right.

When positional All-Star starters were announced, only Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman from Baltimore made the cut, but there were Orioles all over the runner-up spots. Ryan Mountcastle, Jordan Westburg, Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn got well-deserved support on the ballot. Baltimore may be one of baseball’s small markets, but — in spite of the MLB’s quest to make the voting process as convoluted as possible — its voice was heard.

Once the American League rosters were filled out for July 16′s Midsummer Classic, only one other Oriole — Corbin Burnes in his fourth straight selection — found his way on. Somehow, a team that had four All-Stars in last year’s game only has three (so far) this season.

If you look at the biggest snubs and the closest calls, funny business abounds.

The reserves are chosen from a combination of player vote and commissioner’s office selections. These two parties, which are arguably closest to the game, haven’t gotten around to considering how good some of the top Orioles candidates actually are. If they do know, they apparently have some bizarre aversion to honoring them.

Why do we think the Orioles, who as of Monday morning were a game behind the Phillies for baseball’s best record, have won all these games? It’s not pure front office wizardry (even though Baltimore is bolstered by that).

Baltimore has damn good baseball players. Folks should start taking notice of the stat lines they are putting down for one of baseball’s best clubs.

You’d be lucky to hear a peep from Westburg on his snub, though the Texas native likely would love to be in Arlington for his first All-Star appearance. The tight-lipped infielder does nearly all his talking through his play: He’s batting .281 with a .835 OPS including 14 homers. His offensive WAR of 3.0 is 10th-best in the American League, just a hair behind Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve, who are AL starters. By many metrics, Westburg is just an average fielder, but he enhances his value by playing third and second base as needed.

The rule is that if you say someone deserves to make an All-Star team, you have to say who didn’t deserve it more. OK, fine with me: Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien shouldn’t be in over Westburg.

The batting numbers aren’t even close. Semien is batting .229 with a .673 OPS. He has fewer homers, a lower on-base percentage and lower WAR. He’s one of the MLB’s best fielders at his position, but it would be crazy to say he’s put together a better first half than Westburg.

It’s unlikely that voters would have made the same mistake. Semien was chosen by the players, but one wonders if the players took a look at the stat lines before casting their ballots. Conspicuously, Semien plays for the host team, which would have only had one other All-Star in pitcher Kirby Yates. Texas also has a vaunted place as the defending World Series winners, but you tend to deserve fewer All-Star bids when you’re six games below .500 this deep into the season.

You might figure Semien’s veteran status gives him a leg up in a head-to-head with Westburg, but if that’s the case, what happened with Craig Kimbrel?

Kimbrel is one of the biggest names among the MLB’s closers, and he is enjoying an elite season: He has a 2.10 ERA and a 0.90 WHIP. He has 23 saves so far this season, which matches the total number he had all of last season for Philadelphia. He’s recovered quite nicely from his blip in May when he looked shaky, and batters in June and July are barely getting good swings on his stuff.

So why is New York’s Clay Holmes in over Kimbrel? A pick from the commissioner’s office, Holmes has a higher ERA (3.00), fewer saves (19), a lower strikeout-per-nine-innings rate (9.3 to Kimbrel’s 13.6). He’s pitched fewer high-leverage at-bats, and he pitches for a team that, currently, is behind the Orioles in the AL East.

Head-to-head, it’s no contest. But for some unexplained reason known only to the league office, Holmes gets the nod.

There are other Orioles worth arguing, of course: Santander has 23 homers, good for third in the AL, and his clutch factor — he performs well with runners in scoring position and in one-run games — should be more thoughtfully considered.

Mountcastle is hitting well, but you could argue his best case is solid defensive play at first. Ryan O’Hearn is a part-time player who has nonetheless become one of Baltimore’s best bats — you could argue that he’s more deserving than David Fry, the Guardians’ selection that has fewer homers and fewer RBIs than O’Hearn despite a better slash line.

Obviously not all of these Orioles, even deserving ones, can be All-Stars. But it’s frustrating that among the reserves, almost none of the players who had such strong fan backing got the nod. A team that has been one of the best in baseball deserves more recognition that its players are some of the best at their respective positions, too.

But it’s not the will of the people that went awry here. It’s the players and league officials — the people who should know the game the best — who had the biggest whiffs.