The Mariners open up a series in Texas today on KPUG

And the Rangers’ dominance over Seattle continued Monday at Globe Life Park.

This makes six losses in seven games for the Mariners who, while they remain three games behind fading Baltimore for the American League’s final wild-card berth, now find three other teams between them and the Orioles.

Darvish struck out nine in 6 2/3 innings and Carlos Beltran homered among three hits, helping the Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners 6-3 on Monday night. Pacific time and the game is broadcast nationally on ESPN, as well as on Root Sports TV and ESPN 710 AM radio.

It was also Beltran’s fifth hit in 10 career at-bats against Iwakuma. The 27-year-old Canadian was pitching well before being sidelined with an elbow injury, giving up one run three times in four turns while registering a total of 27 strikeouts over 28 1/3 frames in that span. Paxton is 1-1 with a 3.12 ERA in five career starts against Texas, including a no-decision on June 11 in which he scattered six hits over 6 1/3 scoreless innings.Hamels followed up a 7 1/3-inning outing on August 19 at Tampa Bay in which he allowed one run and three hits while fanning out 10 with a performance against Cleveland on Thursday that saw him give up two hits and notch eight strikeouts over eight scoreless frames.

Iwakuma allowed a season-high five runs for the fourth time.

Hitting: Carlos Beltran’s solo homer in the first gave Texas a 1-0 lead. The Mariners are sliding here and while the Rangers have a comfortable lead in the division I think they will be out to give Hamels a strong outing as they look to get him some hardware for his excellent season. In his 163 innings, Iwakuma has pitched to a solid 3.81 ERA, though a number of his secondary statistics have trended in the wrong direction, including his strikeout rate (6.5 K/9), walk rate (2.0 BB/9), ground-ball rate (39.8 percent) and average fastball velocity (87.8 mph).

Venditte’s outing still was considered a positive. The right-hander with the quirky delivery allowed two runs on four hits over five innings. “Had I kept the damage to a minimum in the third inning, we might still have been in it”. Much better than it was earlier when we saw him.

Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki deposited a single to left-center field in the fourth inning of Monday night’s game against the Mets, then added a double to center field in the eighth. Rangers manager Jeff Bannister called on lefty Jake Diekman.

Texas extended its lead to 5-0 in a four-run third inning after Elvis Andrus led off with a walk and stole second.

That brought the tying run to the plate and prompted Texas to replace Diekman with Keone Kela, who struck out Nelson Cruz. Cruz swung over it. Asked if Cruz was hurting, Servais replied, “Yes” without detailing it. “It’s no excuse. Hopefully, it’s taken care of tomorrow”.