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Jeurys Familia, center, who got the final six outs for the save, with teammates after the Mets eliminated the Dodgers in Game 5 of their division series.Credit Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — Zack Greinke glared out to right field, shook his head and massaged a baseball, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Daniel Murphy had turned on a low, inside fastball, sent it screaming into the seats and then flipped his bat. The Dodger Stadium crowd watched in stunned silence.

Murphy, the workmanlike second baseman, rounded the bases with a stoic look, his jersey covered in dirt. The Mets’ dugout, though, exploded in cheers, and for the first time all night, perhaps, Jacob deGrom, the starter, looked relieved.Murphy’s sixth-inning, solo blast will forever be remembered in Mets lore. It gave the Mets a 3-2 win over the Dodgers and over Greinke, who was perhaps the best pitcher in baseball this season, in the winner-take-all Game 5 of this National League division series.The Mets will face the Chicago Cubs in the league championship series, with Game 1 on Saturday night at Citi Field. Four more wins, and the Mets will advance to their first World Series since 2000. The Mets showed on Thursday that they have the mettle to hang with a powerful Cubs offense.Continue reading the main storyMurphy had a hand in all the Mets’ runs. DeGrom pitched six gutsy innings. Manager Terry Collins guided deGrom with the right touch and made two aggressive moves with his bullpen to seal the win.DeGrom beat Clayton Kershaw with a masterly performance in Game 1, compiling 13 strikeouts in seven shutout innings. But this performance may have been more impressive, given the magnitude of the moment and how deGrom had to fight for every out.DeGrom clearly did not look like himself from the start. His command was off, and his fastball was a few ticks slower. The Dodgers hit four consecutive singles in the first inning, scoring two runs. After the fourth hit, an Andre Ethier blooper, the crowd let out a deafening roar as an angry deGrom yelled into his glove and the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig practically danced in the dugout.All the pressure seemed to be on the Mets. This was their first winner-take-all game in nine years, their first since Carlos Beltran struck out swinging against Adam Wainwright in the 2006 N.L.C.S. That had been a flash point in Mets history — most fans of a certain age could tell you where they were when that happened.In the second inning, when Joc Pederson walked and Howie Kendrick reached on a Wilmer Flores error, the Mets started warming Noah Syndergaard in the bullpen. But deGrom struck out Corey Seager and Adrian Gonzalez on off-speed pitches to strand both runners.Syndergaard started warming again in the third inning when deGrom had runners on the corners with one out. Collins even went out for a second mound conference in the first three innings, and deGrom responded by forcing an inning-ending double play.Photo