Braves and Dodgers face off in first baseball game with fans at Globe Life Field

The Texas Rangers will watch other teams enjoy their new stadium and fans will be inside for the first time Monday night.

Groundbreaking for Globe Life Field was almost exactly three years ago. But when fans watch baseball in the new stadium, it will be far from a full house.

Only 11,500 tickets were sold for Monday night’s MLB playoff game between the Braves and the Dodgers. The stadium can hold more than 40,000 people.

Tickets were sold in groups of four with each of those pods separated by at least six feet to maintain social distancing.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the NLCS for the fourth time in five years. But their manager said there’s never anything routine about playing this far into October.

"I think to the complacency question, you know, when you're in the League Championship Series I don't think that there'd be complacency. I think that we've been playing good baseball over the last month with the various types of opponents, and I think our guys did a very good job of just kind of really focusing on ourselves playing well while preparing for whatever opponent it is,” Dodgers General Manager Dave Roberts said.

The Dodgers swept the Padres last week in the National League Division Series, which was also held at Globe Life Field.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Braves are making their first appearance in the NLCS since 2001. They’re also coming off a sweep in their division series against the Marlins.

LA knocked the Braves out of the playoffs in 2018. But Atlanta’s general manager said his ball club is stronger than it was two years ago.

“I just think we’re more talented. We’re deeper. We’re... I think the one thing that was eye opening about that series in 2018 and the Dodger’s series was we didn’t match them in terms of power. So I would say the biggest change is offensively a lot more fire power by design and our bullpen is much deeper than it was back then,” said Alex Anthopoulos, the Braves general manager.

The series features two teams with lots of offense so fans should see plenty of runs.

The winner of the NLCS will play the American League champion. Currently the Tampa Bay Rays lead the Houston Astros one game to none in their series being played in San Diego.

The World Series will be played at Globe Life Field next week.