Melvin Mora says he was only kidding.

Mora, now in his third full season with the Baltimore Orioles, says he was “only playing around” when he told his wife, Gisel, that he’d like to have six kids.

But in a frenetic span of three minutes on July 28, 2001, Mora got his wish, as Gisel capped an arduous, abbreviated pregnancy by giving birth to quintuplets — two boys, three girls — who joined Tatiana, Gisel’s daughter by a previous marriage.

Seeing the Mora quintuplets today, running around their Bel Air home like any other toddlers, it’s hard to believe that their lives were once measured in minutes, their bodies so fragile that the slightest infection could have proved fatal.

Now 20 months old, they have given Melvin and Gisel unbridled joy as well as fresh perspective. Tough isn’t hitting a 97-miles-an-hour fastball. Tough is knowing your 2-week old son is fighting for his life as doctors rush him into an operating room in the middle of the night.

Pressure isn’t batting with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. Pressure is giving your 4-month-old daughter CPR on her first day home from the hospital.

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