Yu trumped by a King

SEATTLE - Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners chased Texas' Yu Darvish after just four innings in his shortest start of the season, and the Mariners rolled to their fourth straight win in a 6-1 victory over the Rangers on Monday night.

Felix Hernandez (4-3) rebounded from consecutive poor starts to hold the top offense in baseball to one run in eight innings.

Seattle became the first team that Darvish had to face for a second time and for a second time he struggled to solve the Mariners. Darvish (6-2) labored through 96 pitches and a season-high six walks and was denied the chance to become the first seven-game winner in the majors.

Only Seattle's inability to take advantage of a bases-loaded situation in the fourth inning kept Darvish's line from being worse. Suzuki singled and tripled off his countryman, driving in a pair of runs as Seattle built on its three-game sweep of Colorado over the weekend.

Monday was a chance to see how Darvish would handle facing a team the second time around. While Darvish was off to a solid start - subtract the five runs in the first two innings against the Mariners in his debut and his ERA since then is 1.94 - all of his starts were against teams seeing the Japanese star for the first time.

And Seattle had plenty of success - for two innings - when they saw Darvish for the first time back in April. The Mariners rattled Darvish for eight hits and five earned runs that day, but the Rangers gave Darvish enough offense to make that first start a victory.

This time, Seattle had nearly as much offensive success - trading hits for walks - but the Rangers bats were getting silenced by Hernandez.

Darvish's troubles started almost immediately. He walked Michael Saunders with one out in the first and Suzuki immediately ripped a shot over first base and down the right field line. But instead of bouncing off the short-wall in foul territory and into the outfield, the ball hit and stayed at the base of the wall. Saunders scored from first and Suzuki strolled into third without a throw and an early lead for Hernandez.

Texas Seattle

ab r h bi ab r h bi

Kinsler 2b 4 0 2 0 Ackley 2b 3 1 1 1

Andrus ss 4 0 0 0 MSndrs cf 3 2 0 0

Hamltn cf 4 0 0 0 ISuzuki rf 4 1 2 2

Beltre 3b 4 0 1 0 Seager 3b 2 1 0 0

MYong dh4 0 0 0 JMontr dh 3 0 1 2

DvMrp lf 3 0 1 0 Smoak 1b 4 0 0 0

N.Cruz rf 3 0 0 0 Jaso c 3 1 0 0

Napoli c 2 0 0 0 Carp lf 2 0 0 0

Morlnd 1b 3 1 2 1 C.Wells lf 1 0 0 0

Ryan ss 3 0 1 0

Totals 31 1 6 1 Totals 28 6 5 5

Texas 000 000 010-1

Seattle 103 100 10x-6

E_Hamilton (2). DP_Seattle 2. LOB_Texas 5, Seattle 6. 2B_Moreland (5), J.Montero (6). 3B_I.Suzuki (3). HR_Moreland (7). SB_Kinsler (6). SF_J.Montero.

IP H R ER BB SO

Darvish L,6-2 4 4 5 4 6 5

M.Lowe 1 0 0 0 0 1

Tateyama 2 1 1 1 1 2

Mi.Adams 1 0 0 0 0 2

Seattle

F.Hernandez W,4-3 8 6 1 1 2 7

Wilhelmsen 1 0 0 0 0 1

Umpires_Home, Brian O'Nora; First, Tom Hallion; Second, Alfonso Marquez; Third, Cory Blaser. T_2:49. A_18,672 (47,860).