ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays took care of business on Thursday afternoon, completing a three-game sweep by beating the Twins, 4-2, at Tropicana Field. The victory extended Tampa Bay’s winning streak to six games, and the club has outscored its opponents by 19 runs (27-8) during that stretch.

The Rays are 46-19, a start matched by only three other teams in MLB’s Wild Card era: The 1998 Yankees (49-16), 2001 Mariners (51-14) and last year’s Yankees (49-16). Now, here come the American League West-leading Rangers for a three-game weekend series between the Majors’ top two teams.

“They're good, no denying,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said on Thursday. “You can see the runs that they're putting out. The pitching has been really good. They made some good offseason moves -- obviously [Rangers manager] Bruce Bochy, that's a pretty good one. … A very, very dangerous team, but it should be a fun series.”

You can debate whether anyone needs a measuring-stick series in early June, or if three games provide enough time to learn anything of long-term value. But if nothing else, it’s bound to be an entertaining three days at The Trop with plenty of storylines beyond the first Major League matchup between brothers Nathaniel and Josh Lowe.

The Rays have baseball’s best record and second-best run differential (+135). The Rangers have the game’s highest run differential (+154) and second-best record (40-21). Both teams have only lost one game so far this month.

Texas has scored more runs than any other team, while Tampa Bay has the league’s best OPS (.812) and wRC+ (130). Nobody has hit more homers (108) or stolen more bases (83) than the Rays, but nobody can match the Rangers’ production (.335 average, .934 OPS) with runners in scoring position.

And they’ve been among the best teams at preventing runs, too. The Rays left Tropicana Field on Thursday with the Majors’ third-lowest ERA, at 3.53. The Rangers sit right behind them with a 3.58 ERA.

“They've got great pitching, great hitters,” said right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who will face Rangers lefty Andrew Heaney in Friday night’s series opener. “They're a solid team. … It’ll be a really good series.”

The Rays will have home field advantage, no small matter considering how dominant they’ve been inside their dome. They are now 29-6 at home this season, the best home start in the Majors since the ‘98 Yankees (also 29-6) and only the seventh team since 1901 to win at least 29 of their first 35 home games.

“It's another series. It's how we take it. It doesn't matter who's here, where we go, we're going to go out and play our game,” Rays first baseman/outfielder Luke Raley said. “They're obviously playing great ball over there. They score a lot of runs. So I think it's going to be a really good series.”

The Rays’ sweep of the Twins was their seventh of the season and their sixth in a row at home, and it improved their series record to 14-5-1. They cruised to a 7-0 victory in the opener, won Wednesday night in dramatic fashion, then rode one big inning and more impressive pitching to victory on Thursday.

Promoted from Triple-A Durham on Thursday morning, right-hander Yonny Chirinos seized his latest opportunity to hold down a spot in the rotation. The big right-hander got through 5 2/3 innings on only 65 pitches, struck out four and permitted just one run on a Carlos Correa homer.

The Rays, meanwhile, didn’t get a runner on base against Twins starter Bailey Ober until there were two outs in the fourth inning. Then Randy Arozarena walked, Raley hit his second career triple (both, of course, coming in the past three days) and Harold Ramírez launched his ninth home run to center field to make it a 3-1 game.

“He threw the ball well today. We took advantage and strung them together when we needed to,” Raley said. “So it's a good team win, and that's what good teams do.”

In the sixth inning, Wander Franco created a run with his legs and daring baserunning. The speedy shortstop reached on a fielder’s-choice grounder, advanced to second on another Arozarena walk, then took off to steal third. Reliever Griffin Jax botched the throw to third base, and Franco dashed home on the error.

“Looked like a good opportunity to go,” said Franco, who has 22 steals, through interpreter Manny Navarro. “He'd only taken one look to second base, so I took advantage of that opportunity and took off.”