ST. PETERSBURG -- Last week, the Rays received nearly a season’s worth of bad news within a few days.

Their star shortstop, Wander Franco, was placed on the restricted list and eventually administrative leave. Their ace, Shane McClanahan, decided to have his second Tommy John surgery. They also lost a veteran outfielder, Manuel Margot, and their most-used reliever, Kevin Kelly, to the injured list.

None of it has slowed them down. Not even a little bit.

The Rays kept rolling Thursday afternoon with a 5-3 win over the Rockies at Tropicana Field, another come-from-behind victory to cap a three-game sweep full of late-inning heroics. Tampa Bay has won four straight games, nine of its past 12 and 16 of 24 while going 7-1 over the past eight series.

The Rays stormed back Tuesday night with a nine-run eighth inning. On Wednesday night, they came back in the ninth and walked it off in the 10th. In the series finale, Josh Lowe annihilated a Statcast-projected 452-foot tiebreaking two-run homer off reliever Matt Koch in the eighth inning.

“It's just something we can build on going forward. We're going to need wins like this in the postseason,” Lowe said. “This is a good time to do it when the games really count down the stretch. I think it's going to be huge for us going down the road.”

It’s no small matter right now, either. The Rays (78-51), who are atop the American League Wild Card standings, are still competing with the Orioles for the AL East title. But they’ve withstood a 5-15 skid in July, a bunch of key injuries and the avalanche of worrying news last week brought, and lately they’ve looked a lot more like the team that ripped off a record-breaking start to the season.

Yes, the Rays’ eighth series sweep of the season came against the Rockies, who have the National League’s worst record and the Majors’ third-highest bullpen ERA. But winning the way they have, with contributions coming in the late innings and from all over, has further bolstered Tampa Bay’s confidence.

“Just to show the resilience and be able to fight back when we go down is always nice to see,” Luke Raley said. “Obviously, we would rather put up 10 in the first and then kind of coast to the end, but it's not how baseball works -- and definitely not here. So more times than not, wins are going to be like this.”

The day got off to an encouraging start for the Rays. Opener Shawn Armstrong began the scheduled bullpen game with two scoreless innings, giving the right-hander a 0.95 ERA with 43 strikeouts and only seven walks in 38 innings over 25 appearances this season.

“Army is on another planet right now,” said reliever Jason Adam, who recorded a career-high five strikeouts while pitching two perfect innings.

Raley gave the bullpen an early lead to work with, bashing a full-count fastball from Rockies starter Peter Lambert out to right-center field in the second inning for his 18th home run of the season. Raley created another run in the fourth, legging out his third triple before scoring on a single by rookie shortstop Osleivis Basabe.

Erasmo Ramírez was responsible for the lone blemish for Tampa Bay, serving up a three-run homer to Nolan Jones in the fifth, but Isaac Paredes tied the game in the sixth with his 26th home run and 80th RBI of the season.

“What a season he's putting together,” manager Kevin Cash said of Paredes. “Man, he's got a knack for getting big hits and big home runs for us.”

With two outs in the eighth, Randy Arozarena reached on an infield single. Up came Lowe, who has said he’s seeing the ball better as he’s bounced back from a rough stretch to hit .365 with three homers and 12 RBIs over his past 13 starts.

Koch started the at-bat with a fastball, which Lowe took for a ball. Lowe fouled off a cutter over the plate and promised he wouldn’t miss it if Koch threw another. He didn’t.

Lowe hammered Koch’s 1-1 cutter and watched it fly off his bat at 111.2 mph. Lowe’s 18th blast of the season was a no-doubter, the Rays’ third-longest homer of the season, and yet another sign they’re not slowing down any time soon.

“It's a great time of year to be doing that. This is the time we want to be peaking. We want to be peaking into September and October,” Adam said. “We know we had a not-great stretch for a bit, but that's baseball, the ups and downs. So we want to try to replicate [games] like this as often as we can.”