St. Louis ? The day before the NL championship series started, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty joked about his team’s underdog status.

“I don’t even know why we’re playing,” Jocketty said. “According to some people.”

Now, the team that limped to the NL Central title is on the brink of its second World Series appearance in three seasons.

A 4-2 victory over the New York Mets in Game 5 on Tuesday night gave the Cardinals a 3-2 lead and put them in ideal position to close out the series.

St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter will start Game 6 tonight at Shea Stadium. A 15-game winner and contender for his second straight Cy Young Award, Carpenter traveled to New York earlier Tuesday to rest.

“We’ve done a lot better than anybody, looking from the outside in, ever thought,” rookie stand-in closer Adam Wainwright said. “We’re in a great position going back to New York.

“We’ve got our horse on the mound and we’re pretty confident.”

Carpenter missed the 2004 playoffs, when St. Louis was swept by the Red Sox in the World Series, because of a biceps injury. He’ll get his chance to put himself – and his team – right back there.

Carpenter is hoping for a better performance than in Game 2 of the NLCS, when he struggled to control his curveball and had trouble with plate umpire Jim Joyce’s tight strike zone. Carpenter gave up five runs, six hits and four walks in five innings, but St. Louis managed to rally for a 9-6 victory that evened the series.

Since finishing 3-9 and backing into the division title on the final day when second-place Houston lost, the Cardinals have played more like the 100-win teams of the previous two seasons.

The Cardinals have enjoyed an uninterrupted slate of sellouts in the first season at new Busch Stadium, but seldom has the place been so raucous as when revived Jeff Weaver kept his team close with another strong postseason effort.

“Our season has been like a rollercoaster, up and down, up and down, but we need to be happy,” Albert Pujols said. “We’re in the postseason having fun, and this is what it’s all about.”

Weaver, 8-14 with a 5.76 earned-run average with the Angels and Cardinals in the regular season, is 2-1 with a 2.16 ERA in the postseason.

The press box was shaking and swaying after Ronnie Belliard tied the game at 2 with an opposite-field RBI single in the fourth, and the tremors returned after Preston Wilson’s double put the Cardinals ahead 3-2 in the fifth.

“I’ll tell you what, it was getting loud,” Wilson said. “It was getting really loud. Not only that it was kind of hard to see the ball in the outfield because they were waving those white towels.”

The place was shaking once again after stand-in closer Adam Wainwright, one of three rookies in a bullpen minus Jason Isringhausen, froze Jose Valentin with a breaking ball for a called third strike to end the eighth with the tying runs on second and third.