This isn’t a new assignment for Tylor Megill. A year ago, when baseball suddenly reappeared after a lockout and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spring training, there he was, the Opening Day starter for the Mets, who won that night and 100 other times during the course of the season. 

And there he was Friday: home opener, a year later, a day after the scheduled home Citi Field lid-lifter had been postponed due to a preponderance of sun and high temperatures. Megill wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the mound at Nationals Park last year, and he was supposed to be in Syracuse on Friday. 

Megill just shrugged last year, threw five innings of shutout ball subbing for Max Scherzer, and beat the Nationals. 

And he shrugged again Friday against the Marlins, taking the ball in place of Justin Verlander: six innings, three hits, zero runs. It was precisely what the Mets needed before they could finally turn over the engine on their offense, all the way to a 9-3 win in front of 43,590. 

“[Megill] was nails,” said first-baseman Pete Alonso, who wrapped a bow around the day with a home run to close out the scoring in the bottom of the eighth. 

Said manager Buck Showalter: “[Megill] was in attack mode. He got us off the field.” 

Megill himself seemed unimpressed afterward, his postgame demeanor looking an awful lot like the stoic version on display during his workday. Two years in a row, he has stepped in as an understudy for Hall-of-Fame-bound aces — and looked as if he simply was playing a game of pepper. 

“There’s nothing really different,” Megill insisted about collecting a pair of high-profile starts two years in a row. “It’s the same from start to start. Just go out there and as well as you can for as long as possible.” 

Megill was a revelation early last spring, ticking 99 on the gun in his early starts, beginning the season 4-0 with a 1.93 ERA in April before biceps tendinitis sabotaged the rest of his season. The Mets tried to recalibrate him as a reliever when he returned in September, but he pitched to a 6.00 ERA. They then hoped to bring him north this year as the temporary replacement for Jose Quintana, but he pitched poorly in his late-spring auditions. 

And yet there he was, again, off to another nice start in April, two wins already (and yes, they count, even against the Marlins’ glorified JV outfit), two runs allowed in 11 innings. 

“He was key,” Showalter said. “He was solid attacking the strike zone. It was not an easy day to pitch, windy, cold, tough to grip the baseball.” 

All you needed for confirmation of that was to stare at the grisly line put up by Marlins starter Edward Cabrera, who lasted only 2 ²/₃ innings and walked seven, including a four-walk horror show that got the Mets on the board in the third inning. 

Megill doesn’t hit the high 90s as much as he did this time last year, but it feels like he has a greater command over his fastball. He also has exactly the kind of mindset you want. He was hit by a scary line drive off the bat of Jean Segura in the fourth inning, one that could have done an awful lot more damage than it did as it hit the fleshy part of his foot. 

It didn’t bother him. After staying on the ground for a few minutes, making sure everything was still where it was supposed to be, he rose to retire Jesus Sanchez on a pop-up, then retired five of the last six hitters he faced, aided by a double play. 

“It happened so fast,” Megill said. “I had no time to react.” 

It seems he’s at his best in that approach. It would offer a great deal of comfort to the Mets if Megill and fellow youngster David Peterson could be a stead source of reliable work while Verlander and Quintana recover, and while Max Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco adjust to the brave new world veteran pitchers face now with the pitch clock. Peterson’s results have been decidedly mixed. 

Megill’s performance? Trending up. April’s just his month, apparently. The Mets would like to see him carry that a little further this time around.