PHILADELPHIA — The first pitch Manny Machado saw from Mets starter Tylor Megill on Sunday was a 96 mph fastball that was belt high and over the plate.

Right over the middle of the plate.

Machado swung and fouled the ball high and into the seats behind the first-base dugout.

Three pitches later, again. Same pitch, virtually the same place, fouled straight back.

This should not be happening.

This has not happened before, not as often as it has this season.

“Yeah, trust me, I’m feeling the same way, and I’m pissed at myself for missing those pitches,” Machado said Tuesday afternoon before the Padres’ 4-3 loss to the Phillies. “I learned not to show emotion. I’ve learned you’ve got to keep things in — except when the umpire calls a bad pitch on you — but I’m frustrated with missing those pitches.”

He went on to talk about his next at-bat that day, the one before he was ejected for taking exception to a strike call on a pitch below the zone.

“He threw me two (pitches) right down the middle,” Machado said of Megill. “And I freaking fouled them off, and I’m like, ‘(Expletive)! What the (expletive)?’ I don’t even know how I’m missing those pitches. It’s right there. It’s right where I want it, right where I’m looking and yeah, I just, I can’t connect with it.”

Machado has made a career — one that has seemingly had him on a Hall of Fame track and made him one of the game’s highest-paid players — out of punishing those pitches.

Of all the things that scream something is wrong, it is his failing to do damage on pitches right down the middle this season.

Machado is batting . 286 (8-for-28) with a .500 slugging percentage (two doubles and a home run) on pitches in the heart of the zone. He has missed on 21 percent of his swings on those pitches.

From 2020 through ’23, he hit .378 with a .779 slugging percentage and missed on just 12 percent of swings on pitches in the heart of the zone.

Machado had elbow surgery in October and didn’t start swinging a bat until mid-January, a month later than usual. He tried to ramp up to play third base at the start of the season but had a setback and was limited to serving exclusively as the Padres’ designated hitter the first month of the season. He was still feeling pain in the elbow into late May. He was feeling better and starting to swing better when he suffered a hip flexor strain on June 5 and missed four games.

“I’m behind the eight-ball a little bit, and I’m okay with that,” he said. “Because I know where I’m going to be at the end of day. But yeah, it’s definitely not where I want to be. My swing is not there. My elbow is not letting me do the things I’m normally capable of doing. So I gotta tweak things here and there. I’ve had to do a lot. I wish I could feel like I did last year or two years ago and feel that way. And obviously right now, it’s not.”

Until Tuesday, he had talked only in generalities about what the issue has been at the plate.

“I just can’t get into my slot to launch the ball,” he said. “You want to be able to get into your slot to drive the ball. I’ve had a pretty decent career on being able to be consistent with hitting the ball to right field and hitting the ball all over the place. But it’s by being consistent with getting that back elbow (in the right spot). My bat path is not where it needs to be right now.”

Machado has not been useless. He still knows how to play and is good enough to be productive on occasion.

At the end of that first-inning at-bat Sunday, he lined a cutter just off the plate up the middle for an RBI single.

“I’m working (in the batting cage before games) on trying to be consistent, trying to get that feeling, get that slot right,” he said. “But once I step onto that field, it’s about competing. You have your shot. You get your two pitches, you go for it. After that, it’s like, ‘OK, now what is the game calling for? I got runners on first and third here. I got to try to get this run in.’ Now you change your approach a little bit. You’re not going for it anymore. It’s the mentality … of forget about what you worked on. You leave that in the cage. Now it’s go out and compete.”

He was batting .249 with a .672 OPS going into Tuesday, the third-lowest batting average and lowest OPS he has ever had in his first 68 games of a season. But he had hit .308 with a .781 OPS in the 26 games leading up to Tuesday’s game.

And in the middle of that burst came the hip injury.

“You’re dealing with all these things,” Machado said. “But then I got over that little hump, and then my legs got underneath me, my elbow started feeling better. I started getting into a better feeling. I started to swing better, started getting into the slot better, started feeling a lot better and then — boom — my hip gets messed up. Now it’s back to the grind.”

Hanging over all of it is the fact he is the guy who the team was built around. They might be getting a career year from Jurickson Profar and better-than-expected performances from multiple other players. But the Padres are not going anywhere except home right after the season without Machado hitting more like he has for virtually the entirety of his career.

“I gotta do it,” he said. “Absolutely. I gotta play. … I’m (expletive) frustrated. I’m (expletive) pissed. I can’t get there. I do think I found it. I think we made a couple adjustments that got me in the right direction. But I just can’t get there. I gotta get there. It’s (expletive) frustrating. I know it’s going to be there. I’m just too (expletive) good. I have to figure it out. I will figure it out, even if I blow my (expletive) elbow out again, I will figure it out.”