HOUSTON — There is the Rays Way.

The Rays have pushed the mighty Astros to the brink with their talented tiny-market team, a collection of players who are all annoyingly different. Some have come from the scrap heap. Some were acquired in wise trades. Some came up through the system. One was an expensive — in the Rays’ eyes — free agent.

But every Ray has one thing in common, and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier will explain their group success.

The 107-win Astros and Rays are tied, 2-2, in the ALDS, with Thursday night’s matchup at Minute Maid Park the winner-take-all Game 5.

The Rays have already won three elimination games this postseason — the wild-card win over the A’s in Oakland and Games 3 and 4 at Tropicana Field against Houston. Now it is the Astros turn’ to sweat as they send out Superman Gerrit Cole against Tyler Glasnow and a bevy of talented bullpen arms who are ready to give it a go for Kevin Cash.

“A lot of people are surprised, but I promise you the guys in this clubhouse are not surprised,’’ Kiermaier said of talented players such as shortstop Willy Adames and DH Tommy Pham.

“We’re not a big-market team, we all know that, and I am not going to sit here and act like I am throwing a pity party because I’m not. We don’t have the most popular guys compared to other teams out there, but I always say that we have a ton of above-average quality players in here making names for themselves. We know they can play and the opposition knows what they are capable of.

“We just don’t have a lot of household names, and that’s fine, but at the end of the day if we are celebrating in the clubhouse, who cares?

“I like our chances,’’ said Kiermaier, who got the biggest hit of the series, a second-inning three-run home run in Game 3 that got the Rays offense rolling.

“How we play and act throughout the dugout, everything is contagious,’’ Kiermaier added. “If we can get momentum rolling for us in Game 5 anything can happen. We’ve won on the road all year and we plan on doing that one more time.’’

The Rays have labeled their quest as “Shock the World.’’

The Astros are confident because they are the Astros, but they respect the Rays in a big way.

“Going into a game I think at this point if you’re surprised by anything that the Rays do then you haven’t really done your homework,’’ Astros manager A.J. Hinch said of Cash’s crew. “Those guys are in there right now going through different matchups. And I’m playing out a million scenarios.’’

The Rays make the opposition think of a world of what ifs with all their different looks.

“Which I think brings up a really key point is the pressure tomorrow is awesome,’’ Hinch insisted. “It’s on both of us. Who’s going to be able to get the lead? Who’s going to be able to get out of the gate and kind of take control of the game? They’re going to want to take our crowd out of it. We’re going to want them to be loud as hell.

“That’s the fun part of your prep going into the game. How long does Glasnow go? I don’t know. When will [Blake] Snell get up? At some point. When do they go to [Diego] Castillo and [Nick] Anderson and the same crew? That’s how they’ve won. It’s how they usually win.

“We are well prepared to audible when we need to and we know who they’re going to bring who in against us.’’

Yes, audibles. This is almost like an NFL matchup because of the way the Rays use different personnel packages.

“We came into this series with a ton of respect for Tampa,’’ Hinch said. “They’ve done nothing but earn more of that. They haven’t won the series yet. Just because they pushed us to a Game 5 doesn’t give them any more advantage or anything like that. Where it fits in [our] 100-win season, I want to have three wins at the end of [Thursday] night. That’s the No. 1 goal.’’

To do that, the Astros have to beat the Rays Way.