The Rays were eliminated by the Rangers today by a final score of 7-1 as Texas swept Tampa Bay clean out of the divisional round of the MLB postseason.
Perhaps a silver lining though to the Rays’ embarrassing showing on the field is not many people were even there to witness it…
Yeah, the Rays are now 1-9 in their last 10 postseason games, went 33 straight innings before scoring a run, and that 13-0 start to the season seems like a decade ago, what continues to reign true is the Rays are still a good team, one far too good for Tampa.
Because for as embarrassing as the play on the field may have been for the Rays, the way the city of Tampa failed to show out for their baseball team is even worse.
And you can save the excuses that people weren’t showing up because it was a week day afternoon game. It’s the fucking postseason.
Since 2010, Tampa Bay has consistently been a bottom-five MLB team when it comes to attendance. That includes this past season where they finished with 99 wins and managed to average less than $18,000 in attendance putting them ahead of only Kansas City, Miami, and Oakland. The difference though between Tampa and other attendance bottom feeders is since 2010 the Rays have been, for the most part, a good team. During that span, Tampa Bay made the postseason in eight of those 14 seasons including a (second) World Series appearance in 2020. Not only that, since 2010 the Rays had 10 seasons where they were above .500 with eight of those seasons seeing the team accumulate over 90 wins.
The good news for the Rays is they’ve seen an increase in attendance since COVID and perhaps their new ballpark will help increase attendance. However, since their inception back in 1998, they’ve been lucky to reach the low 20K mark, numbers very reminiscent of the old Montreal Expos.
