As the 2009 enters its final week of regular season games, two more teams have joined the New York Yankees in securing playoff berths.
The National League’s St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers have both cemented post-season appearances, with the Cardinals also clinching the National League Central Division title.
If the current standings hold true, the Dodgers are poised to wrap up the NL West title over the scrappy Colorado Rockies within the next couple of days. The Rockies, however, have a bit of a fight on their hands for the NL Wildcard with the surprising Atlanta Braves breathing down their necks.
On the American League side, the New York Yankees clinched the AL East title yesterday, September 27, following the team’s three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox, but the Sox remain poised to walk off with the Wildcard this week because they have a commanding lead over the Texas Rangers. With their 100-win record, which is the best in baseball, the Yankees will have the home field advantage throughout the post-season.
The Detroit Tigers remain in a race for the AL Central title with the Minnesota Twins, and the two teams play a four-game set beginning tonight, which will likely decide the division.
The playoffs are scheduled to begin Wednesday, October 7, but so far ticket sales have been a little weak for some brokers, with the exception of Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox tickets.
“Right now, baseball playoff sales have been slow,” Zach Anderson, vice president of marketing at TicketCity, told TicketNews. “We’ve had some interest in Yankees and Dodgers tickets, and maybe the Red Sox, but that’s mainly it.”
Anderson believes the down economy is the major factor, but the company has not loaded up on playoff tickets as much as it has in past years partly because of StubHub’s strength in baseball among fans due to StubHub’s secondary ticketing deal with league.
Historically, ticket sales for the early playoff round are soft, and this year there doesn’t seem to be any new flavor to the playoff picture, no Tampa Bay or Colorado from a couple of years ago. It feels a little like ‘business as usual.'”
