White Sox attendance still an issue

The weather was near perfect Saturday, and the White Sox drew a crowd of 26,200 to U.S. Cellular Field.

There were plenty of empty seats as the Sox fell to the Seattle Mariners 10-8 in 12 innings, ending their winning streak at nine games.

But it was a much better turnout than Friday, when 19,168 showed up for a game matching up two Cy Young Award winners: Jake Peavy and Felix Hernandez.

“Obviously, you’d like to see a little more support when we won eight in a row, nine in a row now, and you come to the ballpark on a Friday night with the Mariners’ Cy Young Award winner in town with those guys, it’d be nice,” Peavy said.

“But that’s not for us to worry about. We’re going to show up and create our own intensity ourselves, and we’ve been doing that for the most part. It’d be nice for the fans to jump on board with a first-place team playing as good as we are. It would certainly be nice.”

The Sox entered Saturday averaging 20,605 per game, which ranked 27th in baseball ahead of only Oakland (20,218), Tampa Bay (19,348) and Cleveland (16,746).

When the White Sox host the Toronto Blue Jays (Tuesday-Thursday), select seats in the upper deck will be priced at $5.