CLEVELAND — With Denver’s clocks running two hours behind New York’s, the Colorado Rockies often watch Yankees games in action as they’re getting ready for their own first pitch.

DJ LeMahieu, the Yankees’ usual leadoff hitter will come to bat, and the Rockies’ clubhouse will spike in volume.

“We’ll be like, ‘What are the chances he gets a hit right here?’” Nolan Arenado, Colorado’s superstar third baseman, said on Monday. “We’re always like, ‘100.’ And then he gets a hit.”

New York is uncharacteristically late to this party. LeMahieu, the Yankees’ soft-spoken Swiss Army knife of an infielder, will start at second base for the American League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. It will mark another coming-out party for the Yankees’ first-half most valuable player, and you don’t hear anyone complaining anymore that the team signed him instead of Manny Machado.

That it’ll actually be LeMahieu’s third Midsummer Classic, however, tells the bigger story. Those who know LeMahieu best are both thrilled and unfazed by his successful first year in pinstripes.

“It’s no surprise to me that he’s doing what he’s doing,” Rockies center fielder Charlie Blackmon said at All-Star Game media day. “I am very happy to see the rest of the baseball world take notice. Sometimes it takes doing that for the Yankees to get the word out.”

To be fair, LeMahieu’s 137 OPS+ at the All-Star break ranks as a career high, and with 12 homers in the Yankees’ first 88 games, he resides on a pace to shatter his personal best of 15, established last year with the Rockies.

Yet he hasn’t become a sensation by power alone. It’s LeMahieu’s all-around game that has everyone marveling. And that his pals in the quietude of Mountain Time knew existed.

“He’s been doing that for the last five, six, seven years,” Colorado shortstop Trevor Story said. “Good for him. He deserves that credit and attention that he’s getting, and obviously no surprise to all of the Rockies guys.”

“I’m excited he’s getting more attention just for a guy who doesn’t hit a lot of homers,” Arenado said. “He’s like the old school player that uses the whole field, hits line drives, plays the game the right way. Gold Glove defense. So that part, I think it’s kind of cool to appreciate that again. Back in the day, that was the way to be, and now it’s coming back.”

Just last week in London, Red Sox manager Alex Cora praised LeMahieu for leading the charge to diversify the Yankees’ offense, which ran more of an all-or-nothing operation last year. On Monday, Cora, managing the AL, put LeMahieu second in his starting lineup, after the Astros’ George Springer.

“Great story,” Cora said of LeMahieu. “People in the offseason thought that he wasn’t going to be able to hit outside of Colorado. Well, he hits outside of Colorado, and in Europe, too.”

LeMahieu, polite and vanilla, found himself Monday in the odd position of discussing his polite, vanilla approach to media relations.

“I’m not the most outgoing personality,” he acknowledged. “I just love baseball, and I love being around our guys.”

Playing for the Yankees, he agreed, has increased attention on both his game and his personality.

“Probably comes with playing in New York a little bit. It’s a little bit more of a magnifying glass in New York,” he said. “But that’s why I like New York, for good and for worse. I enjoy it. I like playing meaningful games. And like I said, I love baseball, and I feel like [New York] is the best place to play.”

Asked whether he liked how New York had magnified his excellence, LeMahieu said, “No, not necessarily. I mean, obviously it’s cool. But it’s not really what I play for.”

Clearly not. Just imagine how big he’ll get, how little he’ll surprise the Rockies, if he leads the Yankees all the way back to a parade.

“DJ is just the silent assassin,” Blackmon said.

Except he’s not so silent anymore. The Yankees hope he keeps getting louder.