Daniel Murphy hopes this year’s 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 inning.

The Mets tied the game in the fourth in the most stunning fashion possible: Murphy’s baserunning. He singled before lefty-hitting slugger Lucas Duda — against whom the Dodgers had shifted their infield — drew a walk. Murphy made his way to second base and “made sure I put my invisibility cloak on,” he said.

Follow The Post’s coverage of the Mets in the postseason:

• Mets decide on their NLCS Game 1 starter
• Mets learn their NLCS foe after Dodgers-Padres battle in do-or-die Game 5
• Veteran Met’s potential return comes with big roster question
• Heyman: California dreamin’! Gutsy Mets in prime position to knock off star-studded Dodgers

As a sophomore at Jacksonville University, he remembers being an infielder who was victimized by a runner taking an extra base on a walk because the infield was not paying attention.

“I thought two things almost at the same time,” Murphy said of his collegiate moment. “I never want to let that happen to me again. And that was about the coolest thing I’ve seen.”

He could feel the eyes of Justin Turner as he passed him and did not think the Dodgers noticed anything awry. He went by Howie Kendrick and felt as if he were still under the radar.

“As I get to second base, I give a peek because [Zack] Greinke pays a lot of attention — like, a lot of attention,” Murphy said. “And there would be no better way to describe my Mets career than to have him waiting for me at third base as I try to do some foolhardy baserunning play.”

Greinke was not concerned. There was one final barrier.

“And then I make eye contact with Corey Seager,” Murphy said, “and he realizes about a tick after that I’m about to do something crazy.”

Murphy took off for third base, where no Dodger was, and slid in safely.

After a Travis d’Arnaud sacrifice fly, the game was tied until Murphy took another at-bat.

In the sixth, Murphy faced off one more time against Greinke in a fight that became a chess match.

Greinke switched from a full windup to delivering out of the stretch for a 3-1 changeup that Murphy hooked foul, a split-second ahead because the cadence of the at-bat had changed.

The full-count fastball Greinke left over the plate.

“I was trying to pull the sucker,” Murphy said. “I was trying to take a shortcut the whole at-bat.”

“Beat him to the spot,” Murphy said of the go-ahead homer, “wrapped it around the pole.”

The Mets would escape Los Angeles with a series victory to jump-start a long and fun run through October.

Nine years later, Murphy is excited to see if this year’s Mets can go one step further.