CHICAGO -- With rain in the forecast all night on another chilly day in the Windy City, the Rays were prepared to face the elements just as much as the Cubs on Wednesday at Wrigley Field. Even with the game’s start time pushed up a little more than an hour, nobody knew how long they would be able to play before rain washed them off the field. That made it critically important to get off to a quick start and claim a lead before the game became official after five innings.

As manager Kevin Cash put it, the Rays’ goal was to “get runs and then get through the fifth inning.”

The Rays did exactly that in their 8-2 win over the Cubs. They jumped on Cubs starter Marcus Stroman in a four-run first inning. They tacked on another run in the second and three more in the fifth. And they got through 5 1/2 innings, playing through steady rain for most of the series finale, before the grounds crew finally rolled out the tarp two hours and seven minutes after Stroman’s first pitch.

About an hour later, the game was officially called and the Rays finished their week-long stay in Chicago with their first back-to-back wins since their season-opening sweep of the Orioles.

“I think that's what we needed,” said catcher Francisco Mejía, who drove in three runs on a first-inning homer and a fifth-inning double, through interpreter Manny Navarro. “We needed to come out here and win a couple games and win the series.”

The Rays haven’t necessarily found their footing yet, even having won three of their last four after dropping five of their previous six games. Two weeks into the season, they’re 7-6 with a handful of hitters still scuffling at the plate, a bunch of key pitchers on the injured list and an uncharacteristic number of mistakes on the bases and in the field thus far.

But they looked a lot more like the team they expect to be during the final two days of their season-opening stretch of 13 games in 13 days, the longest scheduled stretch without an off-day to start a season in franchise history. And they were thrilled to head home after six days of cold and rainy -- and, at one point, snowy -- baseball in Chicago.

“We're slowly but surely getting guys locked in, and I said the other day we haven't even caught our groove yet,” said center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, who doubled to left in the fifth to drive in the Rays’ final run. “We definitely are not playing our best baseball right now. … But we showed up to play. Had some tough games we lost there versus the White Sox and even the first game here, but we finished it off the right way. It'll be a good flight back home, and we'll all be excited to drive to The Trop come Friday, for sure.”

Ideally, the Rays will pick up where they left off at the plate on Tuesday and Wednesday. After scoring three runs or fewer in five of the last six games, Tampa Bay put up six runs on Tuesday and piled up eight runs on nine hits on Wednesday. And the Rays beat the Cubs in a variety of ways in the series finale.

“We think we're built in a way that we should be able to put runs up on the board. We've got a versatile lineup, a very deep lineup,” Cash said. “Depending on the pitcher’s handedness and the matchups, we feel like we can put a lot of pressure on pitchers -- and today was a good example of that.”

In the first inning, Brandon Lowe worked a leadoff walk and scored on a double that Randy Arozarena smashed between the legs of third baseman Jonathan Villar. Arozarena then stole third base and dashed home when catcher Yan Gomes’ throw sailed into left field. Ji-Man Choi walked before Mejía crushed a two-out, two-run homer out to left-center, continuing his impressive run of clutch hitting and giving the Rays the quick lead they knew they’d need.

“We're a really good hitting group. Just kind of feeding off each other, everybody's energy when you go up to the plate,” rookie outfielder Josh Lowe said. “Hitting's contagious, and we're ready to keep this thing going.”

Shortstop Wander Franco continued his torrid start to the season in the second, ripping an RBI double off Stroman that capped his 9-for-22 road trip. Arozarena reached on an error to start the fifth and scored on Josh Lowe’s triple to right, then Mejía drove in Lowe with a double to left that ended Stroman’s outing and sent the Rays home on a high note.

“We needed to play better baseball [after] the way it started out. Happy with the way the guys bounced back, so very encouraged by that,” Cash said. “I know the game was cut short, but saying that, we did a lot of good things early on off Stroman, who's a talented pitcher. We didn't give in, we had good at-bats and then we had some really timely hitting.”