Carson Benge, Mets on the climb as they welcome consistent Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are five games out of first in the National League Central. The New York Mets are five games out of the league's final wild-card spot.

And while the Cardinals seek a fifth straight win when they visit the Mets on Tuesday night, not everything about their series revolves around the number five.

For example, after enduring four West Coast trips in the first two months of their difficult season, the Mets start a stretch where they don't have to leave the Eastern time zone for 35 straight games.

The Mets enter this stretch after winning seven of their past 10, which enabled them to shave two games from their wild-card deficit.

Rookie outfielder Carson Benge helped the Mets earn a split of their fourth West Coast trip by going 5-for-5 and scoring three times in Sunday's 7-3 win at San Diego. Benge has posted a .316 average (42-for-133) with five homers and 20 RBIs in his past 34 games after hitting .189 in April, when the Mets endured a 12-game losing streak.

"I'm not surprised," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said of Benge. "We've seen the type of player and the talent (he is) and a lot of the things he can do on the baseball field. He's finally settling, he's comfortable, he's playing his game, and we're going to see a lot of games like that when he's locked in."

The Cardinals have been locked in all season as they continue to be unfazed by deficits. When they stretched their winning streak to four with a 5-3 win over Cincinnati on Sunday, Victor Scott II and Ivan Herrera drove in runs in the eighth inning on balls that did not leave the infield and went for errors, giving the Cards their 19th comeback victory.

"We continue to do a nice job of just staying focused," St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. "That's a big part of this. You can easily get distracted and start to think about what just happened or start thinking too far ahead of what it's going to take to come back. But the guys just continue to stay focused on what's right in front of them and have done a nice job of coming back often."

Jordan Walker keeps doing the job regardless of the score. He has strung together four straight multi-hit games and owns a .478 average (11-for-23) in his past five games.

Dustin May (3-6, 4.59 ERA), who is 0-4 with a 3.86 ERA in his past seven starts, opens the series for St. Louis. May has completed at least six frames in five of those outings and took a no-decision last Tuesday while allowing three runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings against Texas.

May did not face the Mets when the Cardinals took two of three March 30-April 1. The right-hander has three no-decisions and a 4.97 ERA in three career appearances (two starts) against the Mets. He's held Juan Soto to two hits in 11 at-bats.

Freddy Peralta (4-4, 3.63), who is 3-1 with a 3.40 ERA in his past seven starts, goes for the Mets. Peralta allowed one run on six hits in six innings during a 7-1 win on Wednesday at Seattle after allowing 11 runs over his previous three outings.

Peralta is 5-6 with a 4.50 ERA in 21 career appearances (17 starts) against the Cardinals.

--Field Level Media