Astros booed in sparse-crowd wild-card loss to White Sox — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Houston Astros fell 6-3 to the Chicago White Sox in Tuesday's wild-card opener at Daikin Park, drawing an announced crowd of 34,011 in a 40,963-capacity stadium with large swaths of upper-deck seats empty.
- Christian Walker called the fan boos "extremely frustrating," telling The Athletic: "We're here, playing at home; we need cheers. We need energy. We don't need boos."
- Bennett Sousa was booed in the seventh inning after spiking two breaking pitches, saying the team had "laid a lot on the line" to earn the fan base a home playoff series.
- The Astros reached the postseason with an 81-81 record — the first team to make the playoffs without a winning record in a non-shortened season — after missing last year's playoffs despite the same finish.
- Houston averaged 30,519 fans per regular-season game, ranking 14th in Major League Baseball, and MLB has historically struggled to fill stadiums for weekday afternoon wild-card games (Cleveland drew 26,186 last year; Tampa Bay drew 19,704 in 2023).
Why it matters: The boos and empty seats underscore how unusual this Astros playoff run is — they got here with a losing 81-81 record, the first sub-.500 team to make the postseason in a full 162-game season. The 34,011 attendance in a 40,963-capacity park, paired with the league-wide pattern of poor turnout for afternoon wild-card games, signals a fan-engagement problem that goes beyond one team's rough season.
Ask SkimNews
