PORT ST. LUCIE — Darin Ruf’s first spring training with the Mets could be deemed a time of renewed hope, after his underwhelming two-month stint with the club last season.

But first he needs to get healthy.

The veteran DH revealed Tuesday he received a cortisone shot in his right wrist this week and will be limited in his activity in camp for two or three days. Ruf said the discomfort surfaced after he began ramping up for baseball activities in January, and that he’s been diagnosed with arthritis in the wrist.

“It’s something over the last few years that has bothered me and then ramping up for this spring training got to a point where I thought it would be beneficial taking care of it instead of trying to grind through it another year,” Ruf said after a workout at Clover Park.

Ruf participated in defensive drills, taking grounders at first base, but batting practice will have to wait until later in the week.

“[The wrist] is something that was bothersome, but I thought I could get through it,” Ruf said. “But as I progressed this offseason not only was I not getting better, I was getting worse, so it’s not something I want to try to do. I don’t think I could have been as productive as I need to be with the way it was feeling.”

Ruf begins the spring as the main right-handed component of the team’s DH equation, with Daniel Vogelbach expected to receive most of the at-bats from the left side. But if Ruf’s woes continue from last season, the team could pivot toward rookie Mark Vientos or consider giving veteran Tommy Pham at-bats as the DH (hardly an ideal scenario for a team thin on outfield depth).

In 74 plate appearances for the Mets last season after arriving from the Giants at the trade deadline, Ruf posted a .152/.216/.197 slash line with seven RBIs. Ruf was booed at Citi Field late in the season and in the NL wild-card series against the Padres.

“Midseason trades are tough on anybody,” Ruf said. “I think performance stems from being comfortable and in a rhythm. Whenever a midseason trade happens it affects people differently, and I think my performance suffered from that.”

Ruf indicated there was likely a snowball effect to his struggles, with increased pressure on him as his slump continued.

“As a baseball player you always go through high points and low points, and you have to have the mentality it will turn around at some point,” Ruf said. “And in such a short amount of time it didn’t turn as quickly as I would have liked it to.

“I think if you look around this locker room you will see guys that have gone through 50 at-bat stretches also where they didn’t perform as well as they wanted to. Mine just happened to come on a new team and in a new place, so it was magnified.”

Ruf is hardly the first veteran trade-deadline acquisition the Mets acquired who struggled in his first season. The Mets can only hope for the kind of bounce they received from Jay Bruce, a player who arrived from the Reds in 2016 and slumped before rebounding the following year.

The Mets traded four players for Ruf — including J.D. Davis, who produced an .857 OPS for the Giants over the final two months of the regular season.

“The track record is there [for Ruf],” manager Buck Showalter said. “He was pretty good early on, and had some challenges, but it’s still there. It’s just a matter of getting into that groove. It’s kind of tough with his role sometimes. … I think that is one of the ways we can get better. I think Darin is going to be better.”