OAKLAND, Calif. – Despite his many talents, Juan Soto has no off button.

But that will cost him at least one game, even though the Yankees held their breath because they thought it was just one game.

A day after sliding into the right outfield wall in the foul zone at T-Mobile Park and making a brilliant catch — with his left knee taking the brunt of the impact and slamming into the wall’s unpadded concrete base — Soto was briefly removed from the Yankees’ lineup Friday as they began a series against the A’s at the Coliseum.

X-rays of Soto’s knee were negative, but he still had swelling and pain Friday, which, after treatment and pregame drills, led the Yankees to play cautiously and keep him on the bench at least to start the evening.

“I just think it’s best to leave him out tonight,” manager Aaron Boone said.

With just over a week of the regular season remaining, the Yankees are trying to secure the AL East and head into October on a high note, and they can’t afford to be without Soto for long.

“I’m not too worried (long-term),” Boone said. “Even talking to (director of sports medicine and rehab Mike Schuk), it’s not something he’s worried about long-term here. It’s just a day-to-day thing. Hopefully he’s available in some capacity tonight.”

In hindsight, the Yankees would have preferred to take the ball as a foul – they were trailing 3-2 to the Mariners in the bottom of the seventh inning – rather than have Soto put his body on the line, especially at that point in the season.

For Soto, however, that’s easier said than done, as he too has a lot at stake in less than two months before he becomes a free agent.

“I feel like it’s just the adrenaline of the game,” Soto said Thursday. “We’re trying to keep the game on track and go out there and do our best. You mentioned free agency, this and that – when I walk into those lines, I forget everything. I’m literally just focused on the game. We’re trying to win the game to help the team do the best we can.”

Boone also said that Soto may have saved himself from worse by sliding into the wall.

“You know how to protect yourself and play smart in certain situations better than you think,” Boone said. “I actually think the way he went down protected him a little bit. Obviously he got bruised and is out today, but the way he went down he actually avoided a bad situation.”

It was all too similar to Aaron Judge’s catch last June at Dodger Stadium, which took its toll on him as he broke his toe on the unpadded base of the wall.

Judge insisted he was fine that night, but he was unable to compete the next day and subsequent tests revealed a torn ligament in his toe.

Soto admitted on Thursday that he was “really worried” about his knee when the play happened, but the pain slowly subsided in the final two innings of the game.

Still, there was some concern, as the star right fielder said he felt it while running and swinging (his place in the order was out of play for another at-bat).

Losing Soto for more than a few days would be devastating for the Yankees, who secured a playoff spot on Wednesday.

Soto entered Friday’s game as the third most valuable player in the American League (according to FanGraphs’ WAR), with a batting average of .286, an OPS of .993 and a career-best 40 home runs.

This isn’t the first time this season that the Yankees have been concerned about Soto’s physical condition, although he has remained resilient overall.

At the beginning of June, he suffered an inflammation of his left forearm, which forced him to miss three games against the Dodgers.

Later in June, Soto was briefly removed from the roster during a series in Toronto after hitting his right hand on the ground while sliding into home base the night before. X-rays were negative and again the result was just inflammation, although he was briefly inserted into the lineup the next day.

In the days and weeks that followed, Soto continued to struggle with pain in his hand, especially when he missed the throw, but the pain eventually subsided.

And then there was the game earlier this month where he deflected a ball with his right foot and fell to the ground in pain, only to stay in the game and hit a home run in the same at-bat that gave him the lead.

The result of all this horror was that through Friday, Soto had still started 149 of the Yankees’ 153 games, the third-highest number on the team behind Judge (151) and Anthony Volpe (150).