PORT ST. LUCIE — Jose Quintana’s fractured fifth rib on his left side will be repaired surgically with a bone graft, sidelining the Mets left-hander for at least the first half of the season.

Quintana chose the surgery over the conservative option of letting the fracture heal naturally, general manager Billy Eppler said Tuesday, after conferring with doctors that included an orthopedic tumor specialist because a lesion was discovered on the rib.

A biopsy determined the lesion was benign, clearing Quintana of cancer concerns. Quintana’s surgery is scheduled for Friday in New York.

Eppler said the surgery will help prevent further fractures that could be caused by the lesion.

Eppler wouldn’t provide a solid timetable on the 34-year-old Quintana’s return other than to say it will “go past July 1.”

The Post reported on Monday that Quintana was expected to be shut down from throwing for at least three months.

“A lot will depend on how soon Jose can resume physical activity,” Eppler said at Clover Park. “How much downtime does he need after this procedure? Does he need to take a week or two weeks or 10 days before he can run?

“It’s a fairly involved surgery. Whenever you do a bone graft it’s going to hurt, that is why it’s hard to set a specific timetable.”

Eppler said the odds of full recovery are better through surgery than under conservative care.

“Conservative care posed close to a coin-flip outcome,” Eppler said. “This has higher certainty. It’s just surgery and what comes with surgery is shutdowns and you have to stop moving.”

Quintana arrived in December on a two-year contract worth $26 million.

With his absence, Tylor Megill and David Peterson are competing for a spot in the Mets’ rotation.

“We’ve got a good acquisition at the trade deadline,” manager Buck Showalter said, referring to Quintana. “I was talking to him about the positive, about how strong he is going to be if we can make it to baseball in October.

“There’s a lot of different things and we ended up I think in a good place other than him pitching for us, but he will be back and we look forward to getting him back.”

Carlos Carrasco hadn’t spoken to Quintana as of Tuesday morning, but could certainly empathize with the left-hander, as somebody who arrived to the Mets and spent more than half of his first season sidelined.

After he was traded to the Mets before the 2021 season, Carrasco tore his right hamstring in spring training.

It took until late July before he debuted for his new team, at less than 100 percent.

The hard part for Carrasco was trying to assimilate to a new organization, but not really feeling as part of the team.

“I came over two years ago and got hurt with my hamstring three times, so it was frustrating because I had just gotten traded and I was just waiting to get there and pitch,” Carrasco said. “It’s happened now to Jose and I think it’s going to be hard on him because he likes to pitch, he likes to compete.

“From Day 1 when I saw him here in spring training he told me, ‘I cannot wait until the games start.’ And this has happened and sometimes you have to go with it and trying to do the best so you can get him back sooner. I understand his spot right now because I was there in 2021.”

Megill and Peterson are the Mets’ primary options to take Quintana’s roster spot, in a rotation that includes Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Kodai Senga and Carrasco.

The lefty Peterson pitched four scoreless innings against the Nationals and still has not allowed an earned run in three appearances this spring.

It came a day after Megill fired four scoreless innings against the Marlins.

“They have some track record of pitching effectively up here,” Showalter said. “But that will cut into the depth Billy and the front office are so adamant about trying to create.”