Here is the part of this opus where we do our best to put what this man is doing in some sort of perspective. So fasten your seat belt. Here we go:
• Hank Aaron hit six postseason home runs in his whole career (in 17 games and 74 plate appearances). Daniel Murphy has now hit postseason home runs in six games in a row.
• No player has ever homered in six games in a row in any of the Mets’ 54 regular seasons. But Daniel Murphy has done it in his very first postseason.
• Here’s just a small list of players who have never hit a home run in six games in a row in the regular season: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard. And Daniel Murphy has homered in six in a row in the postseason.
• Then again, it’s almost easier to list the guys who have had a streak like this. Over the last nine years, only three players (Nolan Arenado this year, Chris Davis in 2012 and Carlos Pena in 2010) homered in six games in a row in any stretch of any regular season. And Daniel Murphy has now done it in six postseason games in a row.
• This is a man who had never hit five home runs in any calendar month over any of his eight previous regular seasons. And he now has hit seven in October — and become the first player to homer in every game of a best-of-seven postseason series. Hey, of course he has.
We could go on, but you’ve probably gotten the idea. Who does this? Certainly not a guy who had homered in only two games in a row once. Certainly not a guy who had spent his career hitting a home run every 54 at-bats — and then got to October and started pounding homers once in every six at-bats.