PHILADELPHIA — Mark Canha is 33 years old and in his eighth major league season. It’s safe to say he’s had quite a lot of conversations about hitting in his life. And so it makes your ears perk up when he says this offseason, he heard people talking about hitting in a way he’s never heard before. 

He’s trying to explain his start to the season, in which he’s gotten seven hits in 13 plate appearances with a .769 on-base percentage, and keeps coming back to the same word: balance. 

“You hear people talk about these things and I’m not sure I really ever fully understood them and how they work,” Canha told The Post prior to the Mets’ contest against the Phillies on Monday night. “Because balance to me could mean a different thing than it means to J.D. [Davis] or anybody. So it’s finding the way that your body works and how to successfully achieve that. 

“And direction is another thing that I’ve been working on. So I’ll notice if I can get my hands feeling like they’re going directly through the middle of the field, then that’s another way of achieving — you can get some good results even if you’re a little off balance or a little of this, a little of that. So there’s balance, direction, there’s these things I’ve figured out or realized, different things than I’ve focused on in the past.” 

Canha is the first to admit that some of his hot start comes down to luck — his batting average on balls in play was a perfect 1.000 entering Monday despite not barreling any of his seven hits, per Baseball Savant. 

But, at least to an extent, you make your own luck. Canha can grind out at-bats, and he’s worked on finding the right way to move and position himself before the pitch. There’s that word again. 

“For me, the challenge is figuring out how to move in a balanced way,” Canha said. “So when I say movement, just paying attention to if I’m balanced throughout the process of the swing.” 

During the offseason, Canha worked at Driveline Baseball, a training center near Seattle, where he heard these concepts being discussed. He’s followed up on that work with the Mets coaching staff since then, and has been seeing the results. 

Before now, he says, he would get caught up in the movement of his hands across the zone — the swing itself. He’s coming to understand now that what he does before that can dictate what comes next. 

“It’s trying to figure out, how can I move in such a way that puts me in an advantageous physical position when I land?” he said. “When it’s time to hit, when the ball comes and enters the hitting zone, am I in a good spot?” 

Canha is a smart thinker about these things — Mets manager Buck Showalter said that in advance meetings, he’s a voice to whom people listen. 

“He just doesn’t waste at-bats,” Showalter said. “He’s kind of an example of what we’d love everything to be. Just continue to grind at-bats. … He’s a pro.” 

No one will mistake Canha, a career .247 hitter, for anything other than what he is — himself included. All seven of his hits entering Monday were singles. He is in the lineup to get on base and do the right things. 

So far, mission accomplished. 

“It’s great,” Showalter said, “what you see from afar and you think somebody’s about, and then you’re with him and they’re actually that.”