Austin Riley delivered the first clutch moment of the 2026 Major League Baseball playoffs Tuesday afternoon at Truist Park, hitting a go-ahead three-run homer in the eighth inning that pushed the Atlanta Braves over the Philadelphia Phillies for a 5-3 home win to open a best-of-three series between National League East Division rivals.
It was an electric scene for fans — at least for those who decided to show up.
The MLB postseason starts with four series in the wild-card round, and there were a noticeable number of empty seats in Atlanta and at Houston’s Daikin Park for day games Tuesday, with 30,127 at Truist Park for the Phillies-Braves opener that started at 2 p.m. local time, well below the 41,108 capacity. The Houston Astros announced that 34,011 fans attended Tuesday’s 4 p.m. series opener against the Chicago White Sox at Daikin Park, also well below its 41,168-seat limit.
It’s not the first time this has happened.
Since MLB permanently expanded the playoffs to a 12-team bracket in 2022, just six of 26 afternoon games in the opening round through Tuesday had reached or exceeded stadium capacity, and seven games failed to reach even 85% capacity. Tuesday’s game at Truist Park was 73.2% full, which is the lowest since the postseason expanded, according to research from Sportradar.