Top 5 Tuesday: Daniel Murphy’s postseason home runs, ranked

Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy is having an incredible postseason. Let’s rank each of his home runs. 
Top 5 Tuesday: Daniel Murphy’s postseason home runs, ranked
Top 5 Tuesday: Daniel Murphy’s postseason home runs, ranked /

Welcome to Top 5 Tuesday, a new feature where we’ll rank the top five somethings, every Tuesday. This week we’re lucky Daniel Murphy has hit exactly five home runs this postseason.

Game 3 of the Mets-Cubs series is Tuesday night. Will suddenly supernatural second baseman Daniel Murphy continue his blistering hot streak?

Murphy, who’s never hit more than 14 home runs in a season, has five in seven postseason games. What? How? He’s so hot that the Cubs decided to intenionally walk him in Game 2 and pitch to Yoenis Cespedes. 

Conveniently for us, five is also the number of items we rank in this weekly list, so let’s put these homers in order. 

• Mets coach on Daniel Murphy’s homer: AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

5. NLDS Game 4, fourth inning

This is the only homer Murphy has hit in a Mets loss this postseason. It’s impressive that it came off of Clayton Kershaw, but the Dodgers ace left a fastball right over the middle of the plate in the upper part of the zone.

4. NLDS Game 1, fourth inning

Ho hum, another dinger off of Kershaw. Looks like Kershaw is trash, actually. 

3. NLCS Game 1, first inning

Yeah, another homer pulled to rightfield. Murph gets bonus points here because he started the game with a dinger in the first and made a nice defensive play for the final out of the ninth.

• ​Illinois, New York state senators make lame pizza bet on NLCS

2. NLCS Game 2, first inning

What’s that? Another home run to right in the first inning? This one is especially impressive because it came on a pretty nasty curveball from Jake Arrieta. That pitch would have been in the dirt if Murphy hadn’t put it over the fence.

1. NLDS Game 5, sixth inning

A game-winning homer in an elimination game? Yeah, that’s pretty cool. 


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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).