The Braves will play at home Thursday night for the first time since the All-Star break, opening a four-game series against the Washington Nationals and expecting large crowds at SunTrust Park through the weekend.
“We feel like things are surging up, and the excitement of the team is palpable,” Braves President and CEO Derek Schiller said.
The Braves drew an average of 38,299 fans per game during a six-game homestand earlier this month, including four consecutive sellout crowds of 40,000-plus.
That upswing raised the Braves’ average home attendance for the season to 32,021 through 47 home games, still down slightly – 445 fans per game – from the same point last year. The Braves rank 12th among the 30 MLB teams in average home attendance, which MLB defines as tickets sold.
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The Braves had total announced attendance of slightly more than 2.5 million in each of their first two seasons at SunTrust Park and are on pace to reach that level again. Last year’s attendance of 2.55 million was their highest since drawing 2.74 million at Turner Field in 2007.
“I’d say the same attendance surge that we saw from the last homestand, we’re seeing again (this weekend),” Schiller said. “That’s probably particularly true because we’re going into a four-game series with Washington, who all of a sudden is showing themselves to be the contender with us in the NL East.”
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After Wednesday afternoon’s loss at Milwaukee, the first-place Braves held a six-game lead over the second-place Nationals in the division. Since May 24, the Nationals are 31-12 -- the best record in MLB over that stretch -- and the Braves are 30-16.
The Nationals, who lost 31 of their first 50 games this season, have won 13 of their past 16 games and 18 of their past 23 (entering Wednesday night’s game at Baltimore). But they’ve gained modest ground on the Braves, who had won 11 of 16 and 15 of 23 before Wednesday.
The Braves and Nationals will meet in four consecutive night games at SunTrust Park, Thursday through Sunday. The series finale will be ESPN’s featured “Sunday Night Baseball” game. The Braves’ homestand then will conclude with two interleague games against the Kansas City Royals on July 23-24.
