Sean Rodriguez walked it off last night in the bottom of the 11th inning, giving the Phillies a 6-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park.
This, of course, happened a few hours after Maikel Franco was sent down to Triple-A to make room for Bryce Harper, who returned to the lineup after the birth of his child, Krew. The reaction to the personnel move was resounding, as Phils fans were wondering why Rodriguez remained with the Major League ballclub while hitting just .053 in the month of August and mustering just one hit in his last 15 at-bats against left-handed pitching.
Rodriguez got his moment in front of the media last night, and decided to “have a go” at the fans, as the British would say:
I’ve transcribed the full exchange with WIP’s Dave Uram:
Dave: Your struggles in perspective based on small sample size, do you hear the noise and frustration of fans about your play –
Rodriguez: Not just mine.
Dave: And if you do, does that motivate you to do something like you did tonight?
Rodriguez: Think about it; who’s looking bad and feeling entitled when you hear stuff like that? (pause) I’m asking you.
Dave: I don’t know –
Rodriguez: That’s what I mean; I’m not the one booing, I’m not the one screaming, I’m not the one saying pretty disgusting things at times. That seems pretty entitled; you’re just making yourself look pretty bad as an individual, as a person, and as a fan. You’re making guys not wanna basically sit there and say they’re gonna support you here, they’re gonna do this. That’s tough. There’s still a lot of good fans though. Those are the ones I hear, those are the ones I pay attention to. The few that might be behind home plate to say ‘hey Sean keep doing your thing, don’t worry about it, things will come around.’ ‘Hey Rhys, hey so and so, hey Bryce.’ Through the thick and thin that’s when you really get to show your true colors. So when you act a certain way towards somebody because you don’t feel like they’re doing what they need to do, just look at life in general. You wanna win. There’s nobody in here that doesn’t wanna win. You gotta just basically sit there and say, man, ‘let me see if I can’t help him get out of what he’s in. Let me see if I cant be encouraging enough to basically help an individual.’ That’s the harder thing to do. The easier thing is to scream ‘boo.’ Let me think of something to say that might be encouraging. I know it takes effort.
Ok, a few thoughts here, since multiple things can be true at the same time:
That’s about it. As a general rule of thumb, fans are absolutely entitled, since they are the paying customers. It doesn’t mean that you as a player have to necessarily give a shit what they think, but it’s not outrageous to expect competent baseball and the requisite effort on the field.