I think that article about the fans not coming out to the park simply misunderstands the way the baseball business really works. It's not like football, which only has 8 home games, or the winter sports, which only have to sell 18,000 seats. You can't just go from 25,000 to 35,000 because the team suddenly becomes popular and people walk up. You need group sales and season ticket sales and advance hustling of promotions and giveaways (which are going to draw in a family of four more easily than, "hey honey, the Phillies are good, is the sitter available tomorrow?)
That work is mostly done in the winter. You can see from watching the games that they are hustling mini-packages (w/ the carrot of playoff seats) now but you can't really call up a business (let alone a school) in July and say, "hey, we're good now, want to bring 20 people out to CBP?" as easily as you can in advance.
On top of that the secondary market exists now, so people can see how easy it is to get tickets, often more cheaply than if they buy them in advance or at the ticket window. Probably 1000 people on any given night are buying tickets that were already sold once.
The current increase in attendance is probably about as good as it gets though it will presumably improve as the pennant race heats up and the weather cools. It takes one or two seasons to really feel the effects of a good team.The ballpark wasn't even sold out every night in April, May and June of 2009 (sellout streak began in July).
I think the lack of any rivalry heat is also at least as much of a factor as our own team or whether the game isn't as appealling. The Nats are kind of a hated rival but they haven't held up their end this year, and we haven't re-learned hating the Braves yet. (that will come in September I expect, quirk of the schedule that none of the games against them to date seemed meaningful).
