Juan Soto entered the New York Mets ' game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night mired in an uncharacteristic slump. The star outfielder had tallied just three hits over his last 35 plate appearances, dropping his season-long slash line to a very un-Soto-like .225/.368/.408.

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,