ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The victory doesn’t fix what is, and has been, wrong with the Mariners for much of the season — flaws that have been magnified in games away from the Pacific Northwest.

The win doesn’t undo the self-inflicted damage they’ve done to themselves on this trip, specifically their lead in the American League West.

But Wednesday’s 5-2 triumph over the Rays and their own struggles on this miserable road trip did serve as a reminder to panicked fans, and also themselves, as to why they have led the American League West since May 12 and why they can carry it to their first division title since 2001.

When they play within the vicinity of their capabilities, they are a good baseball team that has a chance be even better. Seattle improved to 46-37 and maintained a 4.5 game lead over the Astros, who won their seventh straight game.

“Heck of an effort by our team,” manager Scott Servais said. “Certainly, this road trip has not gone great for us. But we needed to find a way to show up today and really compete. We did that.”

Seattle closed out the nine-game, three-city road trip with a 3-6 record, losing all three three-game series. They will get a much-needed day off before returning to action on Friday night, opening one of the more difficult homestands of the season with series vs. the Twins, Orioles and Blue Jays.

“I know it’s been a rough trip,” Servais said. “I sat here last night and tried to explain that the sky was not falling. This is baseball, it happens. You go up, you go down, you just have to grind through it. And when it gets hard, you’ve got to deal with it. Our guys have that ability. They have the ability to bounce back and we saw it today.”

For the first five innings, it seemed as if the Mariners were trending toward yet another loss where the starting pitcher delivered a quality start and they failed to do the minimum required on offense to find victory.

George Kirby had pitched five solid innings, allowing one run on fluky play where he fielded Yandy Diaz’s infield chopper, but had not one to throw to at first base since Ty France had also made an attempt to field the ball.

“I know with a lot of the righties, Ty was playing off in that situation,” Kirby said. “I didn’t know that and it was on me for not looking, but I could have got there easily if I didn’t hesitate.”

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