It hasn’t been an ideal start to the season for the Mets, who hadn’t played well against anyone other than the Marlins until Monday night.

And facing a Padres team that ended their season in the wild-card round a year ago and Yu Darvish, who has owned the Mets for much of his career, it could have been another rough night at Citi Field.

Instead, Max Scherzer delivered five shutout innings and Jeff McNeil delivered a two-run, two-out double in the third, as the Mets won 5-0 in their first shutout victory of the season.

“It was nice to be able to get a win against them,’’ McNeil said. “They played well against us last year. We’ll probably run into them again [in the] postseason. We’ll see.”

Darvish outpitched Scherzer in Game 1 of that wild-card series last October.

This time, Scherzer got the better of Darvish and the Padres, as he didn’t allow a hit until one out in the fifth inning.

And Darvish, who entered the game 5-0 with a 2.56 ERA in eight previous outings against the Mets, allowed five runs in 6 ¹/₃ innings.

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Scherzer walked three and routinely pitched into deep counts, so he needed 97 pitches to get through five innings.

He also held San Diego’s big three — Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Xander Bogaerts — without a hit.

The Mets turned to John Curtiss in the sixth, who issued consecutive two-out walks to Soto and Bogaerts before striking out ex-Yankee Matt Carpenter to end the threat.

Drew Smith tossed a scoreless seventh, saved by a fine running catch by Brandon Nimmo in right-center on Austin Nola’s long fly ball that would have scored a run after Smith had walked Ha-Seong Kim with one out.

Scherzer, who said he was unable to finish hitters off in his previous start, didn’t have his best command on Monday, but was still very effective.

“He just never gives in,’’ manager Buck Showalter said. “He didn’t quite have command of his fastball. That’s a potent lineup. He did what he needed to do.”

Throughout Monday’s outing, Scherzer gave up very little hard contact and didn’t allow a hit until Kim’s liner fell in front of Nimmo with one out in the fifth.

He stranded Kim at first by getting Rougned Odor to pop out and struck out Nola after an 11-pitch at-bat that ended Scherzer’s night.

“I was able to avoid the big hit,’’ Scherzer said. “They have a great lineup and you’ve got to bring your A-game.’’

The Mets threatened for the first time and took the lead in the bottom of the third with a two-out rally.

Nimmo started it with a single up the middle to snap an 0-for-11 streak.

He stole second before Francisco Lindor was hit by a pitch.

McNeil followed with a two-run double.

“I feel we’ve kind of been missing out on that big-time hit,’’ McNeil said. “It was nice to deliver right there. [Darvish] made one mistake to me over the plate.”

“Jeff likes the challenge of facing a pitcher as good as Darvish,’’ Showalter said of McNeil, hitting third for the second time this season, between Lindor and Pete Alonso.

The Mets added some insurance in the seventh.

Mark Canha led off with a double and moved to third on Luis Guillorme’s bunt single. Eduardo Escobar drove in Canha with a sacrifice fly to left to make it 3-0 before Nido extended the inning with another infield single that just stayed fair.

Lindor ended the drama with a two-run double later in the inning and David Robertson and Adam Ottavino closed it out.

“We have a long way to go,’’ Alonso said. “A lot of teams are just trying to figure it out right now. Is this a measuring stick? I don’t know yet.’’