Phillies won’t treat the bye week as a vacation — and won’t use it as an excuse: ‘It comes down to us.’

Much has been made of the Phillies’ bye week, and its pros and cons, but one thing is for certain: The players won’t use it as an excuse. If anything, they see it as a positive. They won’t have to win as many games to achieve their goal. Banged-up players will get some rest.

Of course, they are aware of the risk of their bats getting cold — but in the spirit of not making excuses, they are trying to be as deliberate with their work as possible. Especially Wednesday’s intrasquad game.

Trea Turner has played in intrasquad games with the Dodgers and the Nationals, and said the lead-up to the Phillies’ game feels different.

“In the past, with other teams, I felt like it was more go through the motions,” Turner said. “This year, it feels more competitive.”

The Phillies will pipe in crowd noise, use walk-up songs, and have umpires officiate the game. They set the two teams on Tuesday afternoon, by pulling positions out of a hat, and set the starting lineups.

There are two captains per team: Turner and Bryce Harper, and Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto. There will be a prize — yet to be determined — for whichever team wins.

What has been determined is the presence of trash talking. Lots of trash talking.

“Of course,” said reliever Jeff Hoffman. “I’m maybe the leader of [the trash talk]. It’s not often where you get to lace ‘em up against your own guys. And when you have a clubhouse that’s as competitive as ours — as chatty as ours … I can’t wait to actually get them out, so I can talk trash on the field. We all like to talk [expletive] to each other.”

“There’s going to be a bunch of [expletive] talking,” said Schwarber. “We’ve been screaming at each other. My team has got to face Ranger [Suárez] and I was like, ‘I thought I was done facing Ranger in my career.’ I guess not.

“I think I’m 0-for-3 with three broken bats. So I’m not looking forward to that.”

“I haven’t participated in the trash talk,” said Brandon Marsh, “because I think I might have been last pick. So I’m just thankful to be here — just kidding.”

Joking aside, no one is looking at this week as a vacation, in the words of Nick Castellanos. The players will try to ramp up the intensity as much as they can, knowing they’ll face a Mets or Brewers team that has momentum.

The trick will be staying sharp, so they can cut off that momentum. In the cages, they will lean on the Trajekt machine and high-velocity step-up drills to make sure their timing is right. On the field, they will try to use a game-like mindset.

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“You have to put yourself in that mindset of — whoever we’re playing, they’re on the other team,” Schwarber said. “You’ve got to take your at-bat and make sure you’re feeling the things you want to feel before we get to Saturday.

“It’s on us. We have to find ways to stay sharp, stay in that mindset, so when we do come out we can play our game.”

Last year, FanGraphs’ Dan Szymborski looked at every matchup where a team had a layoff of four or more days, against an opponent with two or fewer days of rest. Over those 35 games, the team with more rest has gone 24-11.

That hasn’t stopped teams from using the bye week as an excuse. In late September, Fox Sports reported that a few Phillies players “took offense” that Braves manager Brian Snitker used his team’s layoff as an explanation for their loss to the Phillies in the National League Division Series last year.

No matter what happens this year, the Phillies say they won’t be using that tactic.

“At the end of the day, everyone’s got to play the game,” Schwarber said. “The Houston Astros did a really good job of having the bye and they made it to the World Series. Obviously, those teams do something right. It comes down to us as a group. There’s no excuse.

“That’s the biggest thing, there’s no excuse. At the end of the day, if we win, lose, whatever it is, it always comes down to us on the field. That’s what it comes down to.”

Added Turner: “Plenty of good teams get beat in that first round and go home, who probably wished they had a bye. So, I look at it as, we earned it. We earned that bye. And you can use it as an excuse in the next round or, if we win, then people won’t talk about it.

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“It’s kind of like hindsight, and that’s what’s kind of annoying about it. For me, it’s how you prepare, doing things the right way, and whatever happens, happens. Rather than waiting to see what happens, and, ‘Oh we should have done this.’ That’s easy to say then. I think we’re excited about it. We feel good.

“If we get beat, we get beat. If we win, we win. I think you own it either way. It’s going to come down to executing. I don’t think it has anything to do with a break or not. Teams can use it as an excuse or you can just say you lost. That’s how I view it. Try to be honest with yourself. I think we’ll be ready to go.”

Backup catcher Garrett Stubbs added: “I think you’d be incredibly dumb not to want your bye week. You want to win your division. It means not having to play three games and possibly get eliminated. On that front, I can’t imagine anyone not wanting the bye week. We’re going to do everything we’re supposed to be prepared for Game 1.

“Win or lose, this is the situation you want to be in. We plan on winning. But if we lost, it wouldn’t be because we got five days off. It would be because we didn’t play our best baseball.”