In playoffs, Dodgers’ Justin Turner to meet the team that took a pass on him

Justin Turner could bat cleanup, in the playoffs, for the team that can afford to buy the greatest players the game has to offer, against the team that did not consider him worthy of a major league roster spot.

That’s a pretty good story, but nowhere near as dramatic as the one that sent him scurrying to his computer to try to understand why he had been rushed to the emergency room and how his body had betrayed him.

He had reported to Dodger Stadium in July with a nagging infection on his thigh. He wanted the athletic trainers to clean it up and cover it so he could play. Next thing he knew, he was at the hospital, getting swabbed for a bacteria sample. Doctors dropped a variety of antibiotics on it, he said, to see which might kill the bacteria.

He had a staph infection, the kind increasingly resistant to standard antibiotics.

“Even when I found out I had it, I didn’t think it was that bad,” Turner said. “Then you look up some stuff about it. I guess you just don’t really think it will happen to you.

“It was definitely a scary thing.”

He was enjoying the season of his life until it was interrupted for weeks, not because he launched his body sideways trying to catch a line drive, not because a 95-mph fastball collided with his hand, but because germs invaded his body after he scratched “a little ingrown hair.”

Turner was warned that a recurrence of the infection could mean serious complications, so he had to avoid sweating when he was cleared to resume workouts — take a few swings, rest a few minutes, repeat.

So, yeah, the New York Mets. They dumped him. In comparison, not that big a deal.

“It’s a business,” Turner said. “You just hope everything works out for the best. In my case, it’s worked out for the best.”

Turner, 30, never had the career cushion afforded a first-round draft pick, or a seven-figure signing bonus.

In 2006, the Cincinnati Reds selected him from Cal State Fullerton in the seventh round. In 2008, they shipped him to the Baltimore Orioles, one of three minor league players swapped for catcher Ramon Hernandez.

In 2010, the Mets claimed him on waivers, and he emerged in New York the next year, as a utility infielder.

“He was always sort of a marginal 40-man roster guy,” Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson said. “We gave him more of an opportunity than he had elsewhere, and he did a nice job for us.”

In 2011, in the first month he got a chance to play regularly, he was National League rookie of the month. In a 13-day span, he drove in 18 runs.

“Of course, it just so happened he was hitting behind Jose Reyes, who was standing at third base every night because he’d hit a double and steal third base, or hit a triple,” Mets Manager Terry Collins said, laughing. “But the fact is that he is a good player.”

Said David Wright, the Mets’ captain and longtime third baseman: “He brings that college mentality of ‘do anything’ to a big league clubhouse — an excellent defender, can play a number of positions, give you a great at-bat, great situational hitter, good in the clubhouse.”

That is the very description of a bench player in the NL, and that is what the Mets considered the ceiling for Turner.

Wright played third. Daniel Murphy played second. Turner was deemed expendable.

And, while it would be easy to say the Mets failed to judge Turner’s talent properly, the fact is that 29 other teams did as well.

The Dodgers did not envision Turner as a cleanup batter. They did not imagine he would beat out Juan Uribe. They surely did not dream that he would finish this season with a slugging percentage higher than that of Chicago’s Kris Bryant, the presumptive NL rookie of the year, or Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen, the 2013 NL most valuable player, or any of the other Dodgers regulars.

In 814 at-bats for the Mets, Turner hit eight home runs. In 385 at-bats this season, he hit 16.

“We certainly didn’t expect this,” Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said.

In the winter of 2013-14, the Dodgers needed a utility infielder or two, and Turner needed a job. He had three offers, all for minor league contracts that guaranteed nothing. He picked the Dodgers over the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins because a bench player gets more opportunity in the NL.

Still, the Dodgers already had signed Chone Figgins, who had not played in the major leagues the previous year. Turner signed later — four days before camp opened — on the recommendation of bench coach Tim Wallach, who had seen Turner at a Fullerton alumni game and wondered why he was out of work.

The Dodgers worked to refine Turner’s swing so he could hit the high pitch as well as the low pitch. They claim no credit beyond that.

“He just keeps hitting,” Mattingly said. “It pushed him into, well, I still don’t think we can say an everyday guy, physically. We haven’t found him to be able to hold up seven days a week. I think it’s a matter of finding the right combination of guys with him to be able to give him those days off and keep our lineup going.”

Said Collins: “He’s gotten his opportunity. A lot of times, guys who get the opportunity to be an everyday guy don’t run with it. He has. I salute him. He’s one of my favorite guys.”

Wright and Turner, the opposing third basemen in this division series, remain good friends and talk often.

“I’m happy for him,” Wright said. “I’m not going to be happy if he plays well against us in the playoffs. But he’s one of those guys you genuinely root for.”

The Mets are in the playoffs for the first time in nine years, in large part because of a young pitching staff nurtured under Alderson. On Turner, the general manager readily owns up.

“You’d have to say,” Alderson said, “we missed on him.”

Follow Bill Shaikin on Twitter @BillShaikin