Nick Castellanos wasn’t ‘flipping us off.’ He was just showing the Phillies how much he wants to win a ring.

In the fourth inning of the Phillies’ 4-1 win on Tuesday night, Nick Castellanos hit a double off Marlins starter Jesús Luzardo and pointed a single finger upward as he stood on second base. It was not his middle finger. It was his ring finger.

That was not immediately clear at first. ESPN’s Twitter account posted a picture of the gesture and blurred out his hand. Castellanos’ teammates in the dugout were also a bit confused.

“I 100% thought he was flipping us off, if I’m being honest,” said outfielder Jake Cave.

“I thought it was his middle finger,” said catcher Garrett Stubbs.

“I did not think it was his ring finger,” said outfielder Brandon Marsh.

Stubbs decided to pull up the footage on an iPad in the dugout. With a group of teammates crowding around him, he played the gesture back in slow-motion. They counted Castellanos’ fingers, one by one, and realized that their assumptions were incorrect.

“We were like, ‘Ohhhh ... that’s his ring finger,’ ” Stubbs said.

Castellanos said it was a spur-of-the-moment act, meant to show that he wants to bring a ring to Philadelphia.

“Of course it was my ring finger, man,” Castellanos said on NBC Sports Philadelphia after the game. “Why would I give the middle finger to my teammates? I love them.”

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“I just found myself doing it,” he added. “And then after the fact I was like, ‘Did I really just do that?’ But it just came out.”

It was a good night for Castellanos, who went 2-for-4 with an RBI. After producing a hot streak in mid-September, he cooled off toward the end of the month, going 5-for-23 over his last seven games. It wasn’t clear what version of the right fielder the Phillies would get this postseason.

But Tuesday’s game must have been an encouraging sign, from the Phillies’ perspective. Beyond the double in the fourth inning, Castellanos did a good job of working his at-bats. In the sixth inning, he worked an eight-pitch at-bat against Marlins reliever George Soriano that ended in a strikeout.

In the eighth inning, he drove home Bryce Harper with another double, this one to left field. He decided to run to third base to protect Harper, who was running toward home plate.

“I knew that they were going to try to [get] him at the plate, so I just took off for third base,” Castellanos said. “If they would’ve redirected the throw and I’m out, Bryce is safe.”

All in all, it was a good night for a player who will be pivotal in the Phillies’ quest for their first ring since 2008.

“He hides his emotions, good and bad, and it was a moment where all the work he’s put in was showing at the biggest level,” Marsh said. “So, throw the finger up.”