After a three-game wipeout in New York, the St. Louis Cardinals' NL Central lead was all but gone.

Carlos Delgado homered for the fourth time in four games, and the Mets completed a sweep with a 6-2 victory Thursday night that extended their winning streak to seven.

Second-place Cincinnati closed within .0004 of the Cardinals, rallying from a three-run deficit to beat the San Francisco Giants 6-3 behind David Ross' tiebreaking solo homer in the eighth.

"A big win," Ross said. "When there are so many teams in it, it's nice to gain ground on anybody. What everybody's worrying about in here is taking care of ourselves at this point."

St. Louis (66-60), which had a 5Z\x-game division lead after play July 26, has lost 18 of 26, allowing Cincinnati (67-61) to close. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa held a 20-minute team meeting after the game.

At New York, Shawn Green had an RBI single in his debut for the Mets, who have won 11 straight at Shea Stadium — their longest home winning streak since September 1995.

New York (78-48) moved to 30 games over .500 for the first time since 1999 and leads second-place Philadelphia by 14½ games in the NL East.

Dave Williams (3-3) allowed two runs and seven hits in 6 1-3 innings.

Jason Marquis (13-12) gave up five runs, seven hits and four walks in six innings.

Reds 6, Giants 3At San Francisco, Ross' homer against Vinnie Chulk (0-2) gave the Reds a 4-3 lead in the opener of a season-long 10-game trip against contending NL West teams, and Juan Castro added a two-run single in the ninth off Mike Stanton.

Brewers 12, Rockies 6Tomo Ohka (4-3) drove in a career-high four runs batting left-handed for the first time in his major league career, and Prince Fielder hit a three-run homer to send visiting Colorado to its sixth straight loss.

Cubs 11, Phillies 2Aramis Ramirez homered and tripled at Wrigley Field, and Chicago hit four homers in stopping Philadelphia's five-game winning streak.