It was still April, game 19 of a 162-game schedule, and a Monday night. And the Tampa Bay Rays were at home in front of 15,331 live ones.
That’s not a good turnout, to be sure, but hardly shocking for the franchise with the lowest average attendance in Major League Baseball last year. Having said that, it was still surprising. That game last Monday, a 5-1 victory that was the Rays’ fourth win in a row, was against the New York Yankees, who historically draw well on the road–including here for obvious reasons. This is not the time to rehash the usual factors and would-be remedies for subpar attendance, but that turnout, less than half capacity, was sobering.