The Seattle Mariners hosted the Texas Rangers on Monday night at Safeco Field in a true duel of aces. When the smoke cleared, Seattle's starter Felix Hernandez came up on the winning end against Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish as the Mariners grabbed an early lead and rolled right along to a 6-1 win to kick off the three-game series.
Michael Saunders drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the first inning and an Ichiro Suzuki triple brought Saunders home to put the Mariners on the board.
Seattle added three more runs in the third inning, when Suzuki drove in two with a single and took third on a throwing error. Suzuki came home on a sacrifice fly by Jesus Montero. Dustin Ackley added an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth and Montero hit an RBI double in the bottom of the seventh.
Mitch Moreland led off the eighth inning with a solo home run that constituted the entirety of the Texas scoring. That was the only run that Hernandez allowed in eight solid innings of work, allowing just six hits and two walks, while piling up seven strikeouts. Darvish allowed four earned runs and lasted just four innings.
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