Juan Soto entered Friday night's New York Mets game against the St. Louis Cardinals mired in an early-season slump, so fans at Citi Field decided to give him a standing ovation a la Trea Turner.

Soto didn’t hear the restless crowd, he told The Post. He was focused on the Mets, on his at-bats, on the “couple rockets right in front of people” that turned into outs. Any frustration Soto — in the first season of a 15-year deal — has over his .221 average gets balanced by knowledge that struggles are just “part of the game.”

Let it be stated that Juan Soto of the New York Mets is hardly struggling this season, his first since signing a record $765 million free-agent contract with the Queenslanders over the winter. After his first 16 games as a Met,