SAN DIEGO — Among the Padres to learn about Jackson Merrill’s life-changing contract extension as he woke up, Dylan Cease greeted his 21-year-old center fielder with a grin in a mostly empty clubhouse Wednesday morning. It was his day to pitch, and you don’t mess with a pitcher on his day.

“I can’t believe you did that to me,” Cease joked.

Cease went on to have a pretty good day, too.

Just not as good as Merrill’s.

Cease struck out seven over a strong 6 1/3 innings, Merrill properly celebrated his nine-year, $135 million extension with a home run and the Padres capped a perfect week of baseball with a 5-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians in front of 35,858 at Petco Park.

No other Padres team had ever started a season with five straight wins.

These Padres are flying to Wrigley Field with a 7-0 start to the season and the designation as one of two unbeaten teams left in the majors.

The other?

The Dodgers, who won two games in Japan last month to start their season, swept the Tigers over the weekend in Los Angeles and could have another sweep — of the reeling Braves — before the end of the day Wednesday.

Merrill’s third-inning homer capped a four-run rally that began with pressure on the bases, all with two outs.

As he’s been throughout the homestand, Tatis was the troublemaker, singling softly to right and moving to third when Luis Arraez followed with a base-hit to left.

Then when Arraez took off for second base on an 0-1 breaking ball, the Padres’ first baseman stopped short of second base as Tatis dashed home from third base.

Second baseman Daniel Schneeman intercepted catcher Bo Naylor’s throw in front of the bag and chose to throw home instead of attempt to chase down Arraez for the third out.

But the throw back to the plate was high, allowing Tatis to slide in safely for a steal of home for the game’s first run.

The Padres’ plated a second run on third baseman Jose Ramirez’s wild throw to first on a grounder from Manny Machado and Merrill opened up a 4-0 lead with a home run to right-center, his second in as many games.

Luis Arraez hit his first home run in the seventh, answering the lone run that Cease coughed up in his first win of the season.

A five-pitch sixth inning allowed Cease to climb the mound again in the seventh, but he allowed a leadoff walk to Carlos Santana and had runners on second and third after Gavin Sheets, in his first start in left field, threw to third base after tracking down Nolan Jones’ single instead of two second.

Lane Thomas’ ensuing ground-ball to short cut the Padres’ lead to 4-1 and ended Cease’s afternoon.

With an assist from Jose Iglesias on a diving play to his right, Wandy Peralta escaped the rest of the inning unscathed.

The bullpen’s scoreless streak was snapped at 24 innings in the eighth when Adrián Morejon coughed up a run, but Robert Suarez tossed a scoreless ninth for his second save.

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