Take heart fans of the Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Florida Marlins, Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs. Your teams were hovering around the .500 at the All-Star break. Making the playoffs seemed unlikely. But impossible? Not by a long shot.  In fact, in the last 10 years, 11 teams have made scorching runs in the second half of the season--defined as being after the All-Star Break--to make the playoffs.  In Depth: Baseball's Biggest Comebacks  Take the 2001 Oakland Athletics. The team, despite its promising young pitching trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, sputtered out of the gate and finished the first half of the season at just 44-43. But the team caught fire after the All-Star Break, going 58-17 in the second half of the season. Manager Art Howe said the run "was a nice way to finish up." You think? The A's were stopped in the AL Division Series by the New York Yankees and Derek Jeter's famous "flip" play.  The A's cemented their reputation for being a second-half team in 2006. That year they started 45-43, but finished the season by winning 48 of their last 74 games to make the playoffs yet again.  Behind the Numbers We went back 10 years to look at teams that either had losing records or were close to .500 at the All-Star Break and, because of a better second half, made the playoffs. Curiously, not one of the 11 teams won the World Series, maybe a sign of a burnout factor after such hot streaks. For our statistics, we relied on stats site baseball-reference.com.  Along with the A's, the Houston Astros also make two appearances on our list. In 2004 the team began the season 44-44. A second-half surge had two primary catalysts: one was Phil Garner replacing Jimy Williams as the manager in the middle of the season. The other was the acquisition of centerfielder Carlos Beltran, who hit 23 home runs in 90 games for the team. The Astros went 48-26 in the second half and eventually lost in the NL Championship Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Astros did it again the next year, this time without Beltran, who was signed by the New York Mets. After a 44-43 start, Houston went on a 45-30 tear, on the hitting of third baseman Morgan Ensberg (36 homers) and the pitching of Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens.  The banner year for second-half comebacks was 2007. The Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees and Colorado Rockies all rebounded from .500 (or thereabouts) at the All-Star break to make the playoffs.  The Phillies were helped by the historic collapse of the New York Mets, who lost 12 of their last 17 to lose their spot at the top of the NL East Division. But not enough credit is given to the Phillies, who won 33 of their last 56 games that year.  The other three teams, however, made the playoffs without as much help as the Phillies had from the Mets. The Cubs, at one point in 2007, were 22-31, but thanks to Alfonso Soriano at the plate and Carlos Zambrano on the mound, they made the playoffs. The Yankees, with their bloated payroll of stars, nearly got manager Joe Torre fired during the season, but went 51-25 in the second half (Torre left the next year anyway). And the Rockies, after a 44-44 start, had an incredible final 30 games, winning 21 of them. They made the World Series that year but were swept by the Boston Red Sox.  Which of this year's teams could be the second-half surger? The Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins and Chicago Cubs, all mired around the .500 mark at the All-Star break, have all shown sparks. Unfortunately, making the playoffs probably won't win a championship--at least not if recent history is any indication.  In Depth: Baseball's Biggest Comebacks
These teams transformed themselves from also-rans into contenders thanks to stellar play in the latter half of the season.