ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mike Napoli goes to work at Fenway Park, not Jurassic Park, but he’s beginning to feel like a dinosaur.

Napoli has played baseball all his life, including more than 1,000 games over 10 years in the big leagues. Over time, the 33-year-old slugger has developed a heightened sense for the strike zone, by definition a 17-inch square that ranges from the midpoint of a batter’s torso to the hollow beneath his knees and spans the edges of home plate. He knows that real estate better than any home he has ever owned.

And now, suddenly, it all seems to be changing.

It happened again yesterday in the second inning of the Red Sox’ series finale against the first-place Rays. Napoli worked the count full against Tampa Bay ace Chris Archer, laying off two nasty sliders, fouling off a 95-mph fastball, doing all he could to stay alive, and was so sure he had drawn a walk on a low, outside slider that he dropped his bat. When home plate umpire Tripp Gibson called a strike, Napoli said he disagreed and walked away.

The fact that Gibson ejected him because, according to Napoli, he ignored the umpire’s unusual request to pick up his bat and carry it back to the dugout would be entirely beside the point if it wasn’t so bizarre. For Napoli, the much more relevant issue is his newfound inability to differentiate between borderline balls and strikes — and the dismal .203 batting average and .684 OPS that are byproducts of it.

“I’ve been trained in my recognition for the strike zone,” said Napoli, who has struck out in 70 of his 237 at-bats, including getting called out 20 times (28.6 percent). “It’s almost like my body shuts down when I see a certain width to those pitches. I don’t fire. I’ve been trained not to do that.

“So for me and my eyes to do something different, it’s not what I do. I’ve tried to swing earlier in counts, but if it’s a ball, it’s a ball. When it gets called a strike, it’s tough.”

Napoli credits Ty Van Burkleo, a former hitting coach in the Los Angeles Angels farm system, for teaching him the ins and outs of the strike zone and preaching plate discipline. Napoli came to relish what he calls “the battle with the pitcher,” so much so that teammates routinely joked he was constantly battling his way out of two-strike counts to get hits and work walks.

Indeed, Napoli has the patience of Job, to say nothing of a plan for every at-bat. If he’s leading off an inning, he almost never swings at the first pitch. He led the majors in pitches per plate appearance in 2013 (4.59) and 2014 (4.47) and ranks second this year behind Houston’s Chris Carter.

And he isn’t about to start changing just because the strike zone appears to be expanding downward and side to side.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Swing earlier, put the ball in play earlier,’ blah, blah, blah,” Napoli said. “It’s not what I do. It’s not what I’ve done my whole career. I work at-bats. I see pitches, especially my first at-bat. The guy throws me the kitchen sink and now I’m ready for my next at-bat because I’ve seen everything. So when a borderline pitch outside gets called, it’s messing with my approach.”

But if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result, it would seem Napoli must learn to adapt or face extinction when he becomes a free agent after the season.

Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis isn’t so sure.

“When you’ve played as long as he has, it’s hard to say, ‘I’m going to change my strike zone and go hit in another zone,’” Davis said. “It’s hard to do that. You don’t work on that. When you get a pitch in a two-strike count that you completely disagree with and you’re out of the at-bat, I can’t argue with a guy. I can’t disagree with a guy for being pissed.”

And when Napoli objects to a call, Davis typically re-watches the at-bat to determine if the slugging first baseman has a case. Davis guessed that Napoli is right “95 percent of the time,” even though commissioner Rob Manfred recently denied that the strike zone is expanding and Major League Baseball sent the Red Sox a memo reiterating as much.

Napoli hasn’t hidden his feelings, voicing them on the field (he slammed his bat and helmet and hard words for umpire Brian Gorman on Friday night) and in the media. And while that likely hasn’t made him popular with the umpires’ union, it’s the only way he knows how to fight back against what he views as a fundamental change in the game.

“I’m not just going to let stuff happen and be OK with it,” Napoli said. “I’m not going to quit. I don’t know. I’ve been in a lot of 3-2 counts where I’ve swung at stuff that wasn’t close because I don’t want to leave it in (the umps’) hands. I still want to be that hitter I’ve always been. I take pride in seeing a lot of pitches, being able to work a pitcher, making him have stressful pitches in a game. I don’t want to change.”

Even, it seems, if it threatens his career.