Need a rest? J.T. Realmuto will never admit it, even as his offense dips. But his value goes beyond his bat.

J.T. Realmuto surely can guess what’s coming.

The pitches, but also the questions.

First, about the pitches. If Realmuto is down in the count, they’re usually breaking balls — and out of the strike zone, to boot. In four at-bats last Saturday against the Cubs, the Phillies catcher/linchpin saw three curveballs and six sliders. All were low and away. He went fishing for five of them, part of a three-strikeout game.

Which leads to the questions. Because Realmuto is a 34-year-old catcher. And when any 34-year-old catcher — especially one who starts darned near every day and is in the last year of a five-year, $115.5 million contract — slumps at the plate, the questions tend to hang like storm clouds.

Is he declining? ... Have all the innings behind the plate finally taken a toll? ... Should he play less?

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The Phillies have discussed it. All offseason, manager Rob Thomson talked about trimming back Realmuto’s workload to keep him as fresh as possible throughout the April-to-October grind.

Yet there was Realmuto, catching 25 of the Phillies’ first 30 games, his usual 135-start pace.

And here were his numbers entering the weekend: .237 average, four doubles, two home runs, .361 slugging, .669 OPS, and 30 strikeouts in 107 plate appearances.

Coincidence? Unsurprisingly, Realmuto maintains that’s all it is.

“I feel great,” he said Wednesday after starting for the 11th time in 12 games. “I think I caught maybe, what, eight games in a row or something like that? But we had two off days in there. When the off days are spread out nice like that, it makes the schedule feel a little easier. So, I haven’t felt like I’ve overcaught. My body’s felt great.”

Nobody doubts it. Realmuto takes as much care of his body as any player in baseball. He’s in peak condition. He’s also as athletic as ever, averaging his fastest sprint speed (28.4 feet per second) since 2020. And there isn’t a catcher in baseball with a faster pop time on throws to second base.

Besides, Realmuto isn’t alone among the 30-something Phillies whose production was down through April. None other than Bryce Harper entered the weekend batting .235 with five homers and a .784 OPS, and nobody suggested he needs more days off.

Sometimes a slow start is just a slow start.

But since Realmuto finished seventh in the NL MVP voting in 2022, his slugging percentage has backslid each year from .478 to .452 to .429 last season, while his OPS has gone from .820 to .762 to .751. The regression is undeniable.

It would surely be helpful to blame it on the demands of the position. And only five catchers in the last 40 years started at least 120 games behind the plate at age 34 or older and carried an OPS of .780 (Realmuto’s career mark) or better: Jorge Posada (three times), Carlton Fisk (twice), Terry Steinbach, A.J. Pierzynski, and Jason Varitek.

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“I heard it my whole career. Absolutely,” said Jason Kendall, an athletic three-time former All-Star catcher who made 149, 131, and 118 starts behind the plate at age 34, 35, and 36 amid declining offense. “My last three or four years, when I looked up at the scoreboard and I didn’t have a ’3′ in front of my average, I was embarrassed. Because I was hitting .230, .240.

“But as a catcher, there’s always something you can do. One thing that I can see J.T. does very well is he splits [offense and defense] up. If you don’t, you’ll drive yourself crazy. And that, mentally, will help him out.”

Indeed, Realmuto has retained immense value as a game-caller. Zack Wheeler and other Phillies pitchers swear by him. So, the team has ideas for how Realmuto can be more productive at the plate without having to spend less time behind it.

Let’s dive in, based on separate conversations this week with Realmuto and hitting coach Kevin Long.

When Realmuto reached over the plate and hit a two-strike slider out to left field in the eighth inning Wednesday night, it marked more than merely the end of a home-run drought that dragged on for 54 plate appearances.

“Yeah, being able to stay through a breaking ball felt nice,” Realmuto said, smiling. “It felt really good."

It was only Realmuto’s third hit of the season off a slider or sweeper. He’s hitless against curveballs and changeups.

And opposing pitchers are well aware.

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For years, when Realmuto struggled, Long would suggest reducing or eliminating his leg kick. Realmuto has grown comfortable with it as a timing mechanism. When everything is right, he starts the leg kick as soon as the pitcher breaks his hands.

What happens, though, when the pitcher changes speeds? It can leave Realmuto vulnerable, especially with two strikes.

“There’s a reason why Trea Turner doesn’t do the leg kick with two strikes,“ Long said. ”It’s harder to time up. If he’s going to do his leg kick with two strikes, there’s certainly more ammunition for the opposing pitcher and things that they can do to attack him."

But as Long has learned, Realmuto can be, well, stubborn.

“He’s not going to get away from his leg kick,” Long said. “We’ve talked many, many times, and he’s like, ‘Work within it. I’ve been able to do it in the past, and that’s what I want to do.’ So, that’s what we do.”

Long emphasizes a different message now. The leg kick can’t always be the same.

When Realmuto picks up, say, the spin of a curveball or a slider, he must slow down the leg kick. Otherwise, he gives himself little chance of staying back and hitting the low-and-away breaking pitches that the Cubs attacked him with last weekend.

Nationals reliever Eduardo Salazar tried to throw a slider away Wednesday night. It caught enough of the plate and Realmuto slowed the leg kick, enabling him to reach out and hit the ball to left field.

“It’s basically letting the ball travel, holding your energy,” Long said. “And he knows with the leg kick, when it’s an off-speed pitch, he’s got to hold his energy a little bit longer on those until he decides to [swing], and he’ll have more success in those situations.”

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To Realmuto, sticking with the leg kick is less about timing than stride direction. If he’s focused on pulling a breaking pitch, his stride will likely cause him to pound the ball into the ground, usually to the left side.

“When you see that ball go to left-center, in my head I’m actually thinking about going to right-center,” he said. “That keeps the barrel going through the zone longer to where I get the ball in the air. As opposed to, if I’m trying to pull that breaking ball, then my barrel goes up and I hit it on the ground. Even if I hit it hard, usually it’s a ground ball.”

Realmuto made 130 regular-season starts in both 2022 and 2023. Last year, he was on pace for 127 starts before having surgery to remove torn cartilage from his right knee. He wound up starting 99 games.

Since 2017, he has squatted behind the plate for more than 7,800 innings, not including the playoffs.

It’s a lot.

In a perfect world, the Phillies would use backup catcher Rafael Marchán more often, if only to find out whether he’s a viable starter if Realmuto’s goals in free agency don’t align with the team’s plans. But there are other considerations.

Realmuto is among the most respected players in the sport. Pitchers trust him so much that they rarely deviate from his game plan. In a start this week against the Nationals, Wheeler shook off Realmuto once. Instead of throwing a splitter away to Luis García Jr., he insisted on a sinking two-seamer.

The result: Home run.

“That’s why I don’t shake J.T. off,” Wheeler said.

It’s also why Thomson is hard-pressed to take Realmuto out of the lineup, even when he isn’t hitting. Looking back, Kendall figures that focusing on the non-hitting aspects of the job kept him in the lineup, too.

“Even though I wasn’t the player that I was when I first started as far as offensively, I knew that I could do something in the game, No. 1, to help the pitcher get through it,” Kendall said by phone. “I know J.T. does that as well. He can do it as long as his body stays healthy. I love watching J.T. catch.”

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The Phillies have data that indicates Realmuto tends to hit well after a day off. They’re cognizant of not keeping him behind the plate for more than four or five days in a row. When the weather gets hot and the days off are less frequent, Thomson will almost certainly give him a rest.

If anything, though, Realmuto prefers to swing his way out of a slump.

“Because to be honest,” he said, “when I’m just working in the cage, it’s always pretty good. I always feel great in the cage. Seeing the results in a game are what really help me get back on track and feel confident at the plate.”

And so, the Phillies will continue to ride their 34-year-old catcher, even if his offense never rebounds to its 2022 level.

“Certainly at a position like catcher, I can see it being a bit taxing on him,” Long said. “We do see some advantages to getting him a day off here and there. We’ve seen some numbers that prove it can help him.

“But he’s done it his whole life. He’ll never, ever admit to [needing extra rest]. Neither will I.”