The Pirates are drawing some alarmingly small crowds at PNC Park, including the 10,185 who watched the 3-2 victory against Florida last night, but the team remains optimistic it can match last year's total.

"Attendance over the first few games in April is never a reliable gauge of what overall attendance will be," team president Frank Coonelly said. "We have sold more tickets than at this point last season, and our in-park attendance through seven games was within 400 people of what we had last year through seven games.

"Nevertheless, it is a shame that more fans have not been able to enjoy Pirates baseball at PNC Park to date."

The average paid crowd through eight dates is at 14,766, which, after last night, dropped the Pirates below the Marlins' 15,033 for the lowest such figure in Major League Baseball. That also is well below the Pirates' average of 17,366 through eight dates last year.

Teams no longer announce actual turnstile count.

The paid crowd of 8,413 Monday was the third-smallest in PNC Park's eight-year history. Since the home opener April 7 drew a capacity 37,491, no crowd has reached 20,000, and four have been less than 10,000.

Last year, the final average was 22,141, which ranked 27th out of 30 teams, for a total of 1,749,142.

The Pirates have lost some of their season-ticket base from last year -- they do not divulge specific numbers -- but, as Coonelly indicated, they are ahead of the previous pace in overall sales by roughly 13,000 tickets. Much of that can be attributed to the already sold-out June 24-26 series with the New York Yankees, but the team also has seen an increase in 10-game plans and group sales.

"The majority of those sales are for games in the summer months," Coonelly said. "We are working very hard to get more people interested in Pirates baseball at PNC Park in April and May. Our attendance objectives far exceed the numbers that we have achieved in recent years."