MINNEAPOLIS -- In all likelihood, these past three series will end up as the Twins’ toughest stretch of schedule this regular season. They entered the nine-game gauntlet against the Blue Jays, the Yankees and the Rays without their four best starting pitchers (or five, if you count Kenta Maeda) and nearing the tail end of a stretch of 37 games in 37 days.

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The Twins’ 6-0 loss to the Rays on Sunday afternoon ended that nine-game span on a low note, but Minnesota still emerged with a 5-4 record in that stretch, with series victories over the Blue Jays on the road and over Tampa Bay at Target Field. The offense is rolling -- its latest performance notwithstanding -- and the Twins’ two top starting pitchers, Joe Ryan and Sonny Gray, are set to rejoin the club in the coming days.

Given all that, they emerged from this stretch all the more encouraged by their performance.

"I think we showed that when we get into a playoff series with these guys, we've got more than enough to beat them in a three-game, five-game series,” Ryan Jeffers said. “We've shown that, and we're down a lot of our pitching. We're down a lot of our starters. We get those types of players back, we're a team to contend with."

The Twins scored 54 runs in the nine-game stretch against the first-, third- and fifth-ranked pitching staffs in the American League by WAR, per FanGraphs. Before getting blanked by Rays lefty Jeffrey Springs on Sunday, Minnesota had handed six consecutive opposing starters season highs in runs allowed: the Blue Jays' Kevin Gausman; the Yankees' Jameson Taillon, Nestor Cortes and Gerrit Cole; and the Rays' Drew Rasmussen and Shane Baz (albeit in Baz’s season debut).

The Twins understand that come October, they’ll need to win games against these sorts of teams and pitchers. And though manager Rocco Baldelli won’t acknowledge the idea that a contest against any particular opponent has any more meaning, several players have noted that these big wins have showed them they can hang with the elites -- something that seemed to be in doubt after Minnesota was swept by the Astros at home from May 10-12 while being outscored by 18 runs (21-3).

“It just shows what we're capable of doing and how much better we've gotten just over the Houston series,” said Byron Buxton, who homered six times in a six-game stretch from June 3-10. “That was a big eye-opener for us, to let us know what we need to try to work on and get better at.”

“Internally, there were some meetings,” Jeffers said. “There was some, 'Hey, we've got to get our stuff together if we want to go out there and compete with those teams.’ … When you get beat by a team in the way that [Houston] beat us, yeah, it makes your eyes open a little bit and say, 'Hey, we've got to do something a little different.'"

The Twins understand that they still weren’t even in position to put their best foot forward during these three series, going 5-4 without Ryan, Gray, Bailey Ober or Josh Winder.

Consider this: The Twins’ five wins in this stretch -- two against the Blue Jays, one against the Yankees and two against the Rays -- were started by Chi Chi González (twice), Devin Smeltzer (twice) and Chris Archer. The former two weren’t anywhere near the starting picture when the season began, but as a bonus, Smeltzer has emerged as a seemingly reliable option.

It has helped a ton that Buxton has fully snapped out of his 0-for-30 skid from May, Carlos Correa is back from the COVID-related IL and Luis Arraez is the leading contender for the batting title. That’s a potent, healthy 1-2-3 punch leading the charge.

Importantly, the Twins are playing loose and confident while having fun -- which they didn’t when they were shell-shocked by the Astros in May.

“We saw 'Houston Astros' across the chest, and we just got tight and didn't play loose and have fun and just play our game,” Jeffers said. “That's what we've been doing. You saw in Toronto how much we just played loose. New York, we just played loose. I think that's how you beat teams and know that you belong."

So was this a measuring stick in a way for the Twins? Absolutely. But they hope to have put their opponents on notice, too.

“I feel like teams are measuring us,” Buxton said earlier in the homestand. “They don’t know what we’re capable of, and that’s what makes us a little bit more scary.”