Video from the upper decks of Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night showed something few expected in October: empty seats during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Game 3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. By the sixth inning, the upper decks looked thin as the Dodgers fell 6-2 and moved to the edge of elimination.
Dave Roberts spoke to the media after the game, but the image that lingered was not one from the dugout. It was the crowd, or the lack of one, at a stadium that is usually treated as one of MLB’s showcase stages. The Dodgers now trail the series 3-0, and a potential Game 4 elimination game was set for tonight.
That made the scene at Dodger Stadium harder to ignore. Tickets for tonight’s Game 4 were on sale for as low as $80 on Stubhub, a price that underscored how the market was reacting even as the series tightened around Los Angeles. In a postseason where every seat is supposed to feel expensive, the optics of empty sections sat awkwardly beside a matchup that should have packed the building.
The contrast also sharpened the bigger question around the franchise’s pull. The Dodgers are supposed to be Major League Baseball’s marquee team, which is why the sight of sparse upper decks drew attention beyond one bad loss. It is the same sort of conversation that usually follows empty sections at Tropicana Park, except this time it was happening at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, in a game that counted toward the National League Championship Series Game 3.
Roberts had a game to explain and a series to salvage. Instead, the night left him carrying both a 6-2 defeat and an image that will follow the Dodgers into Game 4: a home playoff crowd that never fully showed up when the season needed it most.
