Daniel Murphy hopes this years Mets also can dispatch Dodgers

You know who is excited about the Mets facing off with the Dodgers in the postseason?The hero the last time the Mets faced off with the Dodgers in the postseason.“A seven-game set this time,” Daniel Murphy said by phone from his home in Jacksonville, Fla.Murphy was a seventh-year Mets infielder playing in his first postseason nine years ago, a five-game set against the favored Dodgers that required all five games.The series began Murphy’s improbable rise to stardom and helped the club launch an improbable October run that ended against the Royals in the World Series.In the NLDS cage match, Murphy blasted three home runs, Jacob deGrom pitched 13 innings of two-run ball and Noah Syndergaard came back on short rest to pitch a scoreless inning of relief in Game 5.But to many Mets fans, it will be remembered as the Chase Utley series, the nemesis turning a breakup slide in Game 2 into a broken leg for shortstop Ruben Tejada.The complexion of the series changed, and not just because Wilmer Flores moved to shortstop.

The venom hurled at Utley for Games 3 and 4 at Citi Field is storied.“Chase was greeted by our fans exactly how he should have been greeted,” said Murphy, who partly blamed himself for his feed to Tejada on the double play.“I know Chase … I like Chase.

But Chase plays on the edge, and in October, the edge is even sharper.Chase went in there thinking: I’m going to make sure my teammate gets another turn at-bat … almost by any means necessary.”It worked, but he also shattered Tejada’s leg and etched his name into all-time Mets villainy.The series, bad blood and all, went the distance because the Mets could only manage one run (a Murphy homer) against Clayton Kershaw in Game 4.

Game 5 in Los Angeles became the Murphy Game.“It’s high up in there,” Murphy said of where it ranks among his favorite all-time.Murphy’s double drove in Curtis Granderson in the first before the Dodgers scored twice against deGrom in the bottom of the innin...