ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays will enter perhaps the most important week of their season with full momentum.

Attacking from the opening inning, the Rays rolled to a 6-3 victory against the Mariners on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field, allowing them to take the final three contests of the four-game series series, which nicely set up a their crucial road swing against the division-leading Twins (American League Central) and Orioles (AL East).

“We knew coming in that this was a very good team, maybe the hottest team in the American League,” manager Kevin Cash said. “We knew we had to play well, and I felt like we did.

“Now we play a Minnesota team we haven’t seen in quite some time, and obviously they’ve done a lot of good things to be in first place for the bulk of the year. We just want to play well and not worry about [Baltimore] until we get there. We know we have plenty of challenges ahead, but we’ve got to feel good winning this [series].”

• Games remaining: at MIN (3), at BAL (4), vs. LAA (3), vs. TOR (3), at BOS (2), at TOR (3)
• Standings update: The Orioles (90-52) hold a three-game lead over the Rays (88-56) in the AL East. Tampa Bay remains the top AL Wild Card team, the club that gets to host a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the AL’s No. 5 seed, with a 7 1/2-game lead over Toronto (80-63).

Right-hander Zach Eflin, who moved to 14-8 and tied Toronto’s Chris Bassitt and Baltimore’s Kyle Gibson for the AL lead in wins, labored in the fourth and fifth innings before giving way to four scoreless innings from the bullpen. Relievers Shawn Armstrong, Robert Stephenson, Colin Poche and Pete Fairbanks each pitched a scoreless inning.

“Our bullpen has been pretty special of late, just making big pitch after big pitch,” Cash said.

In a 14-game span since Aug. 26, Rays relievers have registered an MLB-leading 1.10 ERA.

“Our bullpen has been absolutely lights-out,” Eflin said.

The quick-striking Rays offense provided an early cushion.

Harold Ramírez smacked a two-run double in the first inning off Mariners starter Bryce Miller, then Josh Lowe followed with an RBI double, putting the Rays up, 3-0.

The advantage was extended to 5-0 in the third. Lowe led off with a hustle double on a liner to the left-center-field gap, then Jose Siri reached on a perfectly executed bunt. Luke Raley brought them both in with a double down the first-base line.

Lowe (3-for-4) matched a career high for hits and doubles (two) in a game. In 33 games since July 30, he’s batting .322 (37-for-115) with eight doubles, one triple, five home runs and 21 RBIs.

“I’ve been seeing the ball better, and I feel like I saw it really well today,” Lowe said. “I feel like our starters and bullpen are the best in the league, so it’s huge to give them an early lead and let them do the rest. I think other teams feel that, too. We get ahead of them, then they feel the pressure to score and they might try to do too much.”

Eflin was touched for two runs in the fourth inning and another in the fifth -- produced by six singles -- but never surrendered a truly damaging hit.

The Rays got another insurance run in the sixth. Osleivis Basabe led off with a double against Mariners reliever Eduard Bazardo. Seattle played with the infield in after a grounder sent Basabe to third, but Christian Bethancourt slapped an RBI single through the hole between third base and shortstop, putting Tampa Bay up, 6-3.

Eflin earned his 50th career victory and his 11th win at Tropicana Field this season, surpassing Blake Snell in 2018 for the most single-season home wins in franchise history.

“It sucks for me to only go five innings, especially at home, and I don’t like that,” Eflin said after his 83-pitch effort. “My command felt pretty spotty. But our bullpen came in and absolutely shut the game down.

“We’ve felt good about this team the entire year. This is why we play -- for the big games against division leaders. We’re all excited to do it. We’re excited to go against Minnesota and Baltimore and take that into the end of September and into the postseason.”