BINGHAMTON — After a breakout 2021 season that skyrocketed Yankees prospect Anthony Volpe into top-10 lists across the industry, a flaw has finally been detected.

“He’s 21, but he acts like he’s 30,” teammate and road roommate Elijah Dunham said recently. “It makes me mad sometimes because I’m like, ‘Dude, you gotta mess up once in a while,’ but he doesn’t. He’s just a great dude.”

As far as Volpe is concerned, that’s the goal. He wants to be the same guy every day he shows up to the ballpark, regardless of what happened the night before or what his season stat line looks like.

It’s a mindset that was put to the test early this season.

With high expectations and all eyes on him, Volpe got off to a slow start offensively at Double-A Somerset, batting .165 with a .607 OPS and 35 strikeouts through his first 29 games. He believed he was hitting balls hard but they weren’t finding holes, as his .189 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) would suggest.

“When you feel like you’re not contributing to the team, it’s hard,” Volpe said before a game last week against Binghamton at Mirabito Stadium.

But just as Volpe made a conscious effort to be the same person around his teammates, he also put an emphasis on sticking to his same process instead of going searching for swing changes because the results weren’t immediately there.

Sure enough, Volpe’s consistent approach is beginning to pay dividends.

Over his past 18 games through Wednesday, Volpe was batting .282 with a .841 OPS and 15 strikeouts. And though he said he feels the same at the plate as he did earlier in the season, he believes it was important for him to go through those struggles.

“One hundred percent, I think that’s just as important, if not more important, than going through the good times,” Volpe said. “It’s obviously really frustrating at times, and you want to be playing better and helping your team win. For me, that’s kind of the worst part of it. Even when you’re making good contact and make an out, you obviously want to be on base and contributing to the team.

“But as a player, learning myself and trusting myself, I think that’s the best part of this is even when stuff isn’t going your way. Just to have confidence and stick to what you’re doing instead of trying to search and change and do different stuff.”

Almost all minor leaguers, even the best prospects, inevitably go through those struggles at some point on the road to the big leagues. But Somerset manager Dan Fiorito, who managed a flourishing Volpe at High-A Hudson Valley last season, was interested to see how he responded.

“To see guys go through adversity is so important, from position players to pitchers,” Fiorito said. “When the game out there gets difficult, when the pressure is on the line or when they’re going through struggles themselves, to see what they’re really made of. That’s something that’s impressed me so much with Anthony. At 21 years old, with all the noise outside of the field, he handles it unbelievably. He just keeps pushing to get a little bit better every day.”

Volpe also made a point to ensure the other areas of his game stayed strong even when the hits weren’t always falling.

When he did get on base, Volpe became a threat to run. Through Wednesday, he was 20-for-23 in stolen bases, good for second in the Eastern League.

Then there was his defense at shortstop, which came with a new challenge: no shifting. In Double-A, infielders must remain on the dirt and shortstops cannot set up past second base.

“I think it’s a really cool opportunity to show off your range and make separator plays, which is what the Yankees pride themselves on teaching and working on with us,” Volpe said. “That has a lot to do with working with the pitcher and catcher, seeing what pitches are coming, knowing the scouting reports on the hitters and where they put the balls on the ground so I can make as many plays [as possible].”

Fiorito lauded Volpe’s defense, both for his ability to make tough plays and for the way he is always in the right spot as the leader in the field.

His teammates have noticed his impact, too.

“Some people might not say he’s living up to what you see on the scoreboard, but everyone on this team knows we wouldn’t be winning games without him,” Dunham said. “The way he plays at short, the way he runs the basepaths, he just brings value in different parts of the game that only baseball people see.”

Meanwhile, the solid play of Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa — combined with slower starts from Volpe and Oswald Peraza (at Triple-A), the two prospects whose potential led the Yankees not to pursue any of the big free-agent shortstops last offseason — has so far quieted the calls for rushing either to the big leagues this season.

For now, though, Volpe is content at Double-A, playing home games about 20 minutes away from where he grew up in Watchung, N.J. He is living in his parents’ house, with teammates Blake Perkins and Max Burt living in the basement, and enjoying homemade pancakes and Sunday dinners with his team when they’re not on the road.

“Part of him is an older soul,” Perkins said. “He likes golfing, he likes to read, he likes just hanging out at home with his family.”

And not getting caught up in thinking about when his call to the big leagues is going to come.

“I guess I’ve learned from watching other guys worry about it and it really kind of turned me off,” Volpe said. “We have such a great game we’re playing and they’re worried about other stuff and putting extra pressure on themselves. At the end of the day, it’s the same game we’ve been playing our whole lives. I guess I’m kind of lucky. I don’t really have FOMO [fear of missing out] or anything like that.”