Rhys Hoskins ranks among the best Phillies hitters ever. Now, he needs the playoffs.

Rhys Hoskins gets it.

Baseball. Philadelphia. Baseball in Philadelphia.

He is a proud man, but also a pragmatic one. His is a sport of numbers, and there is only one that matters.

“It’s the last ingredient,” Hoskins said as he stood at his locker on Tuesday afternoon after posing for his fifth team picture as a Phillie.

Five years sounds like a long time until you are the one who’s living it. Engagements, marriages, pet adoptions, pandemics — all have a weird way of warping time as you march along with it. Five years ago Wednesday, Hoskins took his first step into a big league batter’s box and five pitches later struck out looking against Jacob deGrom. The Phillies lost, 10-0, to fall 28 games under .500. Like the 349 losses that followed it, this one wasn’t his fault.

And yet, that is the Number, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter that the Phillies were 27 games under .500 without Hoskins that season. It doesn’t matter that they were four games under with him. It doesn’t matter that they are 17 games over .500 since that day. It does not matter that they were 91 under before it. For context’s sake, over the last four years, the Phillies are two games over .500 with Bryce Harper. Again, though, it does not matter.

Is it worth considering? Absolutely, especially when you look at some other numbers.

For instance ...

2 — That’s the number of players who hit more home runs in their first 618 games as a Phillie. Their names are Chuck Klein and Ryan Howard.

7 — That’s the number of Phillies who had a higher OPS than Hoskins’ .858 mark in their first 618 games with the organization. The names of those seven: Dick Allen, Don Hurst, Chase Utley, Scott Rolen, Mike Schmidt, plus Howard and Klein.

16th — That’s Hoskins’ rank on the Phillies’ all-time home run list, higher than Darren Daulton, Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino, Stan Lopata, and Granny Hamner.

And yet, all of those numbers lead back to the one that matters.

Zero.

That, of course, is Hoskins’ total number of postseason at-bats.

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“Whatever cliché you want to talk about when you talk about winning,” Hoskins said. “Winning is everything. It cures everything. I think when you talk about any legacy in sports, the first thing that people say is ‘World Series winner.’ Or ‘Super Bowl champion.’ Those are always the first things that are talked about. That’s the last ingredient.”

He gets it, and a lot of people in his position haven’t. Pat Burrell and Jimmy Rollins got to realize it when they were here. Scott Rolen, Bobby Abreu and Curt Schilling found it elsewhere. Yet each of them had their moments when they allowed their frustration to show. That’s not a detriment to them as much as a testament to him. Every bitten lip eventually bleeds. Hoskins has somehow worn it.

“I think everyone thinks about their legacy in a sense,” Hoskins said. “But I think on top of that, it’s, ‘Was I part of a team that left a legacy?’ That’s the most important thing.”

Think about how difficult that is to say — let alone to believe — within the context of a baseball team. On a basketball court, you are one of five. A quarterback has a ball in his hand 50 percent of the plays. Baseball? You get the same number of at-bats as the other eight guys in the order. You throw zero percent of the pitches. Yet the better you are, the more you are defined by the wins and losses next to your name.

Among the Phillies who saw it firsthand was Chad Durbin. When he arrived in Philadelphia, the organization was at a juncture similar to where it is now. The Phillies had made the playoffs, but they had not won. Burrell, Rollins, even Howard. The skepticism was just as real.

And then?

“You couldn’t walk into a Wegmans without people peeking over aisles and asking, ‘Are you Chad Durbin?,’” said Durbin, a key bullpen piece on the 2008 team that beat the Rays for the Phillies’ first World Series win in 28 years. “And I’m nobody.”

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In this town, though, it can sometimes hurt to be somebody. Look at Abreu, Rolen, Eric Lindros, Donovan McNabb. On the teams that fall shortest, the blame often falls to those who have been here the longest. Five years into his Phillies career, a year-and-a-half away from free agency, Hoskins is that common denominator. As productive he has been, the playoffs remain the thing that will define him.

“I think it would be huge for him, because he is a Phillie through and through,” manager Rob Thomson said. “You see all the work he does, off the field during the offseason and during the season. He’s prideful in this city and what this ballclub means to this city. It would be a huge for him.”

He knows it. He gets it. When the Phillies drafted him in the fifth round in 2014, the 2008 squad was just an echo. But he sees the pictures on the wall. He sees the reception when they return.

The Phillies entered Tuesday 12 games above .500. The odds gave them a 90% chance at making the postseason.

“I’ve heard about it,” Hoskins said. “Now I want to feel it.”