Ignoring obvious on the diamond

SOMETIMES, as in a lot of times, I figure that those who know better say the opposite — or just take a pass — hoping we don’t know any better.

In the first inning of the Yankees-Boston game Saturday on YES, Brett Gardner, a lefthanded hitter batting .193, on a 1-2 count hit a 98 mph pitch to the third-base side, beating it out for a hit away from the shift.

Paul O’Neill explained why: “Brett Gardner still runs well and Nathan Eovaldi throws hard. So what do you do? You slap it the other way.”

No chance that Gardner merely swung late at a 98 mph pitch, happy to make 1-2 pitch contact? If he could do as O’Neill said he just did, why was he hitting .193? Why does he so often strike out or ground out trying to pull the ball deep, thus into the shift?

Another YES man, David Cone, continues to confuse by seeing the same things two different ways.

Sunday, he mocked the “quality start” stat — six innings, no more than three earned runs — as “laughable.” Agreed. That’s a

4.50 ERA “quality start,” the kind of stat that could only be the offspring of analytics.

Yet, moments later, Cone recited a list of analytic pitching stats (kinds of pitches thrown, how often and how successful) that ignored dozens of significant pitcher versus batter and game circumstances — as if that data held genuine, applicable enlightenment.

Then there are the Mets’ radio and TV announcers, Gary Cohen, Howie Rose, Wayne Randazzo, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, who watch “Humble Pete” Alonso excessively celebrate himself (on Sunday, home plate through the dugout, he couldn’t get over himself) after hitting home runs.

Unless all five approve of such unbridled public immodesty, all are stuck with pretending to love what they logically don’t. Would any teach the kids in their lives to play that way? If not, why not? That brings us to reader Len

Geller, who asks if Alonso prefers to watch “CNFN or MSFNBC.”