Biggest In-Season Comebacks Topic

tecwrg
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Just curious to hear people share stories about the furthest they've seen a team come back during a season from being "down and out" to making the playoffs.

There's a team in one world that I'm aware of that was 40-51 and 12 games behind at the All-Star break that finished at 87-75 and took a division title.

Looking for other "turnaround" stories.
11/3/2010 11:11 AM
MikeT23
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Season 8 of MG(which I count as my favorite season).

I didn't reach .500 until around game 140.  If I'm not mistaken, I was right around .400 at the break.    We were coming off an 83 win season and I felt we had made enough improvements to win 90-95 so I refused to "give up".    We started playing a little better after the break then we went on a pretty solid run where we played around .650 ball for 30 games to reach .500.  Nothing spectacular over the last 20 games, 14-6 or 13-7, but enough to leave us 2 games out of the WC2 with 3 games left.  Swept mum, who had the lead for the WC2, and got the playoff spot.   Won the first series against the owner who won our division and thought "It's destiny!" before losing 3-1 to the 2 seed.
11/3/2010 11:22 AM
dedelman
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Season 16 of OCD:  we were 18-32 and 11 games out, and snagged a Wild Card at 90-72.  I realized that I had way better talent than 18-32 and didn't bail on the season.  Not quite as impressive as the above 2 because we started our move much earlier.
11/3/2010 4:37 PM
pstrnutbag44
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I wish I would've kept track of the record, but a team I took over in Hall of Fame one season (Season 5) was out of it (I am positive it was below .500) & abandoned. I took that team mid-season, made some moves, got into 1st in the division and won the WS.

When I took over the team in the infamous Clarkson (another abandonment, totally decimated), it was in dead last in a division with a juggernaut, and I missed the WC by tiebreaker in that same season. That was no small task, considering what I had to work with.

11/3/2010 4:50 PM
eeyore1959
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At 7-13 and seven games out, got the "you might as well concede the season" trade offer for my best young starter and my workhorse starter, with marginal prospects coming back, which I gave the too damn early response to, got as low as 14-25, slowly came back up to respectable and ended up 86-76, in the playoffs as division winner, season 14 Kaline.
11/3/2010 7:42 PM
EasyE7273
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Not quite a complete comeback but I was 14+ games out at the break in Joey Belle last season and finished tied for first at 77-85 (yes, bad division) but lost the tiebreaker.  I was actually 1 game ahead with 4 to play but choked.
11/3/2010 9:39 PM
dyoungquist
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In season 7 of Edmonds, my team started out 19-31.  Played 0.625 ball (70-42) the rest of the season to finish at 89-73 and capture the #6 wildcard spot.
11/4/2010 6:49 PM
tropicana
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Season 13 of MG when we went to the ALCS we were 10 out and roughly 10 under .500 too, came back too win the division after a 3 way tie.
11/4/2010 7:40 PM
tropicana
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That particular season changed my mind about being "out of the running" incidentally.
11/4/2010 7:40 PM
soursurfer
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Season 11 of Wailing Onions saw a team go 9-32 out of the gate thanks mostly to awful luck. They kept clawing, made some good moves and managed to make it to 85-77, which got them a division title.
11/4/2010 9:12 PM
silentpadna
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Season 4 in Hamilton (my first ever HBD), I was 17-25 and apparently going nowhere.  I made a change at catcher and later two deadline deals for pitching.  Went 82-42 the rest of the way to win 99.  Went on to win the WS.

Current season in Mantle, started 3-13, eventually got to 76-63, but it appears to have been too big of a hole to dig out of.  Looks like I'll be short of the WC (though I'm about 10 games ahead of one of the division leaders (doh!).
11/5/2010 12:26 PM
bigal888
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My Seattle Mariners were 54-55 and 11.5 games out of first place.  At this point they went 24-11 over the next 36 games and wound up tied for first before having to play in a one-game playoff for the division title - which they ended up winning.  In the first round they went down 2 games before rallying back and winning 3 in a row to make it to the LCS (the last game was back and forth before being won on a two run double in the bottom of the 11th).  It was all for naught as they got beat and missed the World Series.

....oh wait...this was real life.
11/5/2010 12:51 PM (edited)
silentpadna
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I was there for "The Double", 1/2 way up the 300 level in the Kingdome.  Best personal baseball memory ever.

11/5/2010 10:56 PM
kcden
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Posted by bigal888 on 11/5/2010 12:51:00 PM (view original):
My Seattle Mariners were 54-55 and 11.5 games out of first place.  At this point they went 24-11 over the next 36 games and wound up tied for first before having to play in a one-game playoff for the division title - which they ended up winning.  In the first round they went down 2 games before rallying back and winning 3 in a row to make it to the LCS (the last game was back and forth before being won on a two run double in the bottom of the 11th).  It was all for naught as they got beat and missed the World Series.

....oh wait...this was real life.
That was an awesome season.  I was in the Dome for (I think) the first home playoff game against the Yankees.  Not quite, but almost as good as being there for Randy's no-hitter.
11/5/2010 11:01 PM
isack24
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I lost 12 of my last 13 to end in a tie for the WC, and lost using the third tiebreaker.

So, whoever came back to tie should probably be on the list.

Edit: I had a fairly sizeable (6 or 7 games) lead when the collapse started.
11/6/2010 10:33 AM
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