This isn’t the first time Yoenis Cespedes’ affinity for golf has intruded on his day job, of course. Last year he spent the morning of Game 4 of the National League Championship Series playing a leisurely round of golf at Medinah Country Club, one of the best courses in the country.

That night, he left the game early, missing the on-field celebration when the Mets qualified for their fifth World Series, because of a bum shoulder. Ah, but that was the Era of Good Feeling around the Mets, and there was little that could dampen the glow around the team. What’s a little golf among friends?

Cespedes would later explain that he regularly plays golf during the season, that it relaxes him, that golf is something he would like to pursue full-time when he’s done with baseball (even if those who know these things well and have seen him play laughed at the notion).

Whatever small controversy emerged died when the Mets took the field for the World Series, though Cespedes played poorly (hitting .150 with no extra-base hits and famously botching the very first ball off the bat in the bottom of the first inning of Game 1).

OK. Now let’s try to be rational about something: Golf isn’t to blame here.

There’s no way to blame with certainty Cespedes’ golf addiction for the massive blow that greeted the end of the Mets’ 9-5 loss to the Yankees Wednesday night in The Bronx. Cespedes tweaked his nagging quad muscle in his final at-bat, bad enough that manager Terry Collins closed his postgame press conference with an oh-by-the-way announcement that Cespedes was finally landing on the 15-day disabled list.

As in: Oh by the way, a tree just crashed on your roof.

By the way, someone stole your identity, emptied out your bank account.

By the way …

Good luck with the rest of your baseball season.

“It’s not good,” Collins conceded.

Before the game, Collins — in a far more chipper mood — talked about Cespedes and golf, a subject suddenly relevant because ex-player Kevin Millar tweeted out a picture of him and Cespedes on an area course Wednesday morning.

Being rational: The man had a quad injury, not a core injury, not a rib-cage injury, not a shoulder injury (this time). Golf carts ease the burden on legs. And Cespedes hit a couple of rockets early in the game Tuesday night, so there was little evidence to blame the links for what ailed him later.

And all of that said …

Man, this is a bad look. Man, this is a bad optic. Man, this is not the kind of stink bomb the Mets needed dropped in their clubhouse now as they try desperately to stay on the periphery of the wild-card race with all their fingernails.

You can blame Cespedes for bad judgment without blaming his hobby for complicating his recovery. These are not mutually exclusive things. And now the Mets’ leadership — starting with Collins, starting with Sandy Alderson — must ask themselves if maybe it wouldn’t have been worth a serious chat in the past few days, asking their offensive centerpiece to maybe put the clubs away while his leg was still howling.

Because this is devastating for the Mets, there is no other way to describe it. The Mets tried for weeks to dance around putting Cespedes on the DL, knowing that losing him for two weeks would mean turning an already enfeebled offense invisible.

They kept looking toward this five-game bloc, five games in American League parks in the Bronx and Detroit that would allow Cespedes to play DH and keep the quad safe from having to play defense.

Today, this is a fair question to ask:

Cespedes had already begged off playing center field because he was already worried plenty about blowing the quad out completely. But he wasn’t willing to sacrifice bombing away off the tee? Shouldn’t there have been a certain amount of responsibility to the team paying him $27 million this year?

And shouldn’t somebody have pointed this all out to him? One of his bosses? Assuming he still sees them as bosses?

No, golf didn’t cause this. Golf didn’t send the Mets’ season sailing down the elevator shaft Wednesday night. But golf sure didn’t help. We keep wondering what might be able to save the Mets season. Turns out, a dollop of common sense might have been the missing ingredient. Too late. Too bad.