Alex Ochoa loves to play the Mets.

A former Met prospect and a touted “five-tool” blue chip who played for the Met organization in 1995, came into his own as a player last year for the Reds, his fourth major league team.

Posting career highs in every major batting stat last season, Ochoa has every reason to smile as he establishes himself as the Reds’ everyday starting right fielder. Yesterday, however, he was smiling because it was his fifth-inning triple that broke open the game for the Reds.

“Oh, yeah,” Ochoa said. “I’m still friends with Rey [Ordonez] and Fonzie. So it’s always nice to win a game here. They are the defending NL Champs. Their bats may have been quiet, but that’s OK with us. It’s not going to stay that way, so we’ll just enjoy it while it lasts.”

Making it every bit sweeter was the fact that the win came against some of his old friends. Ochoa insists that he doesn’t circle the games against his old clubs – Milwaukee, Minnesota and the Mets – at the beginning of each season, but did admit that he does look forward to coming back to Shea Stadium, where Ochoa has a lifetime .267 average with only two home runs.

“Maybe a little bit,” Ochoa said of getting pumped to play the Mets. “Not to the extreme, though. I’m just trying to concentrate on winning games right now.”

It was Ochoa’s triple off Kevin Appier that scored Sean Casey from third. The only hit of the game for Ochoa, known in baseball circles more for his arm than for his run manufacturing, came after Casey’s double to the wall and a wild pitch that moved him to third.

Ochoa came up with one out and the score tied at one.

“It was a fastball up and in,” Ochoa said. “I thought I had a chance for third when [Shinjo] dove for it.”

Starting in right field, Tsuyoshi Shinjo almost caught up with Ochoa’s rope to the gap in right-center, sprawling out parallel to the ground to make the play.

Shinjo missed and the ball rolled to the wall, where center-fielder Jay Payton caught up with it. Ochoa, watching the play as he turned around first, saw Shinjo sprawl for the ball and chugged to third.

The triple scored Casey to put the Reds up 2-1 and Ochoa scored on the next at-bat, a sac-fly to right by Aaron Boone, to give Cincinnati the 3-1 win.

“It’s nice to come into your old ballpark and do something like that.”