PHILADELPHIA _ The juxtaposition was impossible to miss.
No amount of walk-up music could drown out the chorus of boos that accompanied Sean Rodriguez to the plate in the fourth inning Tuesday night, a reaction to his comments from one night earlier that fans who give the Phillies a hard time are "entitled." Six pitches later, though, the jeers turned to mostly cheers when Rodriguez lined a leadoff double.
Consider it a snapshot of public sentiment these days about the local baseball team. The flaws of the roster are picked over daily by fans who expected more this season, but somehow the Phillies are in the mix for the National League's final wild-card spot despite season-ending injuries to their leadoff hitter, No. 2 starter and almost their entire bullpen.
So, do you believe in the Phillies, or don't you?
It isn't an easy question, is it?
Today, the doubters will outnumber the devotees. Mired in a miserable slump, first baseman Rhys Hoskins dropped a throw from shortstop Jean Segura on a would-be double-play grounder in the ninth inning, enabling the go-ahead run to score in a 5-4 loss to the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates.
With that, and the Chicago Cubs' 5-2 victory over the New York Mets, the Phillies slipped back to two games off the pace for the last NL playoff berth with 31 games remaining.
As he chased down the ball after it glanced off his glove, Hoskins heard boos for the second consecutive game. He has seven hits in his last 71 at-bats and is 24 for 145 (.166) with five homers since the All-Star break.
Monday night, the crowd got on Hoskins for popping out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. Rodriguez, who hit a walk-off homer to win the game in the 11th, came to Hoskins' defense in a postgame interview at his locker.
"The guy has 60-plus homers in three years and you're booing him. Explain that to me," Rodriguez said. "That's entitled fans."
Predictably, that didn't sit well with the fan base. Rodriguez was booed during pregame introductions, before his first plate appearance in the second inning, and again before the fourth-inning double. He was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning after the Pirates removed lefty starter Steven Brault from the game.
The Phillies came back from an early 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead before falling behind 4-3 in the sixth inning. For a second straight night, though, they rallied to tie it. Logan Morrison belted his fifth career pinch-hit home run in the sixth inning against reliever Kyle Crick.
And they had chances to take the lead back, too. But the Phillies were unable to score in the seventh and eighth innings despite getting leadoff doubles by J.T. Realmuto and Cesar Hernandez, respectively.
It took all of 10 pitches for the Pirates to jump out to a lead against starter Drew Smyly. Kevin Newman led off the game with a triple before Bryan Reynolds clocked a two-run home run, marking the fifth consecutive start in which Smyly gave up at least one long ball.
But Smyly settled in, at least for the next few innings, retiring 15 of 19 batters at one point and giving the Phillies' offense a chance to chip away at the lead and eventually seize it.
Corey Dickerson doubled and scored on Adam Haseley's two-out single in the second inning. Bryce Harper singled and scored the tying run on a two-out single by Dickerson in the third. Rodriguez sent the fans on their emotional roller coaster to open a 3-2 lead in the fourth.
But Smyly stumbled again in the sixth inning. He gave up a leadoff single to Jose Osuna and a go-ahead two-run shot to Colin Moran, the ninth homer hit in the last 25 innings against Smyly.
