SAN DIEGO — The battle of two disappointing high-payroll teams trying to resurrect their seasons ended with the Mets celebrating their longest winning streak of the year.

As much as the Mets tried to hand this one over, the Padres simply wouldn’t accept it.

So it went to the 10th inning, where the Mets used hits from Jeff McNeil, Francisco Alvarez and Francisco Lindor to escape Petco Park with a 7-5 victory on Friday.

The Mets (42-46) won their sixth straight, using four innings of solid relief from a rested bullpen — Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino, Drew Smith and David Robertson — to seal it.

McNeil slapped an RBI double in the 10th to score the automatic runner before Alvarez’s single brought in another.

With two outs, Lindor (who homered earlier in the game) continued his recent tear with a single that brought in two additional runs. Tommy Pham’s hit by pitch also contributed to the inning.

“The belief has always been there — we know we’re a good team,” McNeil said. “We have just been waiting for his kind of moment. We have won six straight, and we knew this was possible. Everything clicking, the starting pitching, the hitting. Everything is going well right now so we all said it was there and we were waiting for it to come out and it has.”

McNeil said his primary mission leading off the 10th was to get the automatic runner to third base. But his grounder along the first-base line got through the infield, starting the big inning.

“The hit was a bonus,” McNeil said. “I was taking one pitch there to try to hook it to the right side and was able to do it and then I think I might have put down a bunt and make sure we got him to third.”

Alvarez, the offensive hero of the Mets’ three-game sweep in Arizona with three homers, finished the night 4-for-5 and Lindor went 3-for-5 with a walk.

The Mets already had squandered a chance in the ninth, when Starling Marte, batting with the bases loaded, chopped Nick Martinez’s pitch back to the mound to start an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play.

It was the second double play into which Marte hit in the game, the other instance occurring in the first, also with the bases loaded.

Smith got the game to extra innings by pitching a scoreless ninth before Robertson got the final three outs, but not before Manny Machado crushed a two-run homer.

The Mets could thank Kodai Senga and Carlos Carrasco, who pitched consecutive eight-inning gems in Arizona the previous two nights, for having a full assortment of bullpen options in this one.

“That is a big part of it, when guys go deep in the game we don’t have to overuse guys as much,” manager Buck Showalter said. “I thought [Smith] had a huge inning.”

Justin Verlander scuffled early, but strengthened in the middle innings and finished with a respectable outing.

The right-hander allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits and three walks with two strikeouts over six innings, exiting after 98 pitches. The Padres managed just one base runner against Verlander over his final three innings after creating plenty of traffic early.

“I came out of the gate and I didn’t have great feel,” Verlander said. “Some of my stuff was breaking differently in the game than it was in the bullpen so I had to kind of rein that in a little bit. … I was just able to find my rhythm a little bit and was able to get there.”

For Verlander it was a fourth start in his last five in which he allowed two earned runs or fewer, but he lasted beyond the sixth inning in only one of them. Verlander’s ERA dropped to 3.60 — matching the lowest it has been this season after a start.

Daniel Vogelbach’s infield single against Yu Darvish in the first inning gave the Mets a 1-0 lead.

Brandon Nimmo walked leading off the game and Pham singled before Pete Alonso was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Vobelbach’s slow roller to the shortstop hole brought in the run, but Marte left the bases loaded by hitting into a double play.

The Padres jumped on Verlander for two runs — one of which was unearned — in the bottom of the inning.

Machado’s scorching two-out double brought in a run before Luis Guillorme – subbing at third base for Brett Baty (hamstring) for a second straight game — booted Xander Bogaerts’ grounder.

Machado continued running on the play and scored to give the Padres a 2-1 lead. Ha-Seong Kim’s leadoff walk started the rally.

Trent Grisham’s RBI double in the second extended the Mets’ deficit to 3-1.

Gary Sanchez’s leadoff single was the Padres’ other hit in the inning.

Sanchez, who had a cameo with the Mets in May, entered the day with seven homers in 33 games for the Padres.

Lindor’s homer in the third pulled the Mets within 3-2.

Lindor continued his torrid stretch that included a 5-for-5 performance against the Diamondbacks a night earlier in which he homered and tripled twice.

Vogelbach’s RBI single in the fifth tied it 3-3 after Lindor walked and stole second against Darvish.

Marte extended the rally with a single before McNeil struck out to end the inning and leave two runners stranded.