DENVER — Late Wednesday night, Todd Helton moved gingerly through the Colorado Rockies clubhouse. It was clear his problematic lower back was acting up.

“It’s just worse than usual,” the former University of Tennessee star told the Denver Post on Thursday.

That was clear Friday when the Rockies placed the first baseman on the disabled list for just the third time in his career.

“It’s definitely a relief to get a chance to feel better and hopefully be productive when I get back,” said Helton.

“It’s disappointing, too. You never want to go on the disabled list,” Helton said. “You always feel like you’re letting your team down, fans down. But you also let them down when you go out there and stink every night.”

The 34-year-old is hitting just .266 with seven homers and 29 RBIs. During his last 22 games, he’s hitting .182 (14-for-77) and was moved from the cleanup spot to hitting second in the lineup.

Helton aggravated his chronically bad back when he took a big cut and whiffed on a pitch from San Diego left-hander Randy Wolf on Wednesday night.

“It’s been bad for a while,” Helton said. “I’ve been feeling pain going down into my leg for a while and my butt. Then my back, the last few days, really locked up. I felt like I could deal with one. One’s affecting the other.”

After sitting out Thursday night’s game against Florida, “he walked in and felt a little worse today,” team athletic trainer Keith Dugger said. “That made our decision even easier.”

Manager Clint Hurdle said “there’s no doubt” Helton’s back problems have kept him far below his .328 career average. In fact, Hurdle said the Helton he has watched warming up in the batting cages “with force and intensity” wasn’t always the same player he saw during games recently.

“We feel we’re best served by shutting this thing down for a while and give him a chance to heal rather than pushing his way through this one,” Hurdle said. “I don’t think he’s capable of pushing his way through this one.”

Helton said he’s likely going to get a cortisone injection Tuesday and won’t push his return.

“I’m not going to set a time deadline,” he said. “I’ll be back when I feel like I can field a ground ball and swing a bat and hit it farther than second base.” In his first 10 full seasons in the major leagues, Helton played an average of 154 games, and he’s never missed more than 18 games in any one season.

Even with a bad back, Helton’s stellar defense was on display night in and night out. Starting all but five of the Rockies’ 86 games, he led National Leaguers with 79 double plays and was tops among NL first basemen with 890 chances.