(Sports Network) - The playoff-hopeful Texas Rangers try once again to open an important nine-game homestand tonight with the first of three consecutive clashes against the sliding Seattle Mariners from Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

This series was supposed to kick off on Friday, but rain caused a postponement, meaning that Sunday's finale will now be a doubleheader.

"We don't need another day off," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "But you can't go against Mother Nature. It's something we have to adjust to. We've been adjusting all year."

Texas enters the residency trailing the Boston Red Sox by only two games for the lead in the American League Wild Card race and is 5 1/2 back of the first- place Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the AL West standings. The team will wrap up this stand with a trio of meetings against the Angels from September 18-20.

The Rangers also return home with plenty of momentum, having just swept a three-game set from the non-contending Indians in Cleveland that was capped by Wednesday's 10-0 rout.

Marlon Byrd had a homer and four RBI to lead Texas' offense, while Scott Feldman hurled seven scoreless innings to notch his 16th victory of the season and seventh straight winning decision.

Ivan Rodriguez also homered and knocked in three runs to help the Rangers win for the seventh time in nine games, while Esteban German went 5-for-5 at the plate. Texas amassed double-digit runs in all three games of the series and outscored the Indians by a 31-14 margin.

Feldman (16-4) yielded just five hits and struck out five to establish a new team record with his 12th road win of the season.

"I think I just try to throw all my pitches instead of being a guy where I just come at you with one or two pitches," said Feldman about his success. "I've been trying to throw everything at them, and I think it's helped keep my pitch count down a little bit."

While the Rangers have been rolling, the Mariners have been fading down the stretch. Thursday's 3-0 defeat to the Angels was Seattle's fifth in a row, the club's longest losing streak since a six-game skid from May 4-9.

The Mariners mustered just five hits against Anaheim's John Lackey, who recorded his eighth career shutout and outdueled Seattle starter Ryan Rowland- Smith. The young lefty allowed all three runs, two of which came on a fourth- inning homer by Torii Hunter, and scattered 10 hits over the first seven innings.

"Rowland-Smith threw a heck of a ball game," said Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu. "Two bad pitches and that was it. We just couldn't get anything going offensively."

Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and remains four hits shy of his ninth consecutive season with 200. The perennial All-Star is currently mired in a 1-for-17 slump.

Ichiro is a career .400 hitter (26-for-65) off Kevin Millwood, Texas' scheduled starter for tonight's series opener. The veteran right-hander has been in a rut as of late, having posted a 1-2 record with a subpar 6.85 earned run average over his past four starts and surrendering five runs in three of those games.

Millwood struggled again in a loss at Baltimore this past Saturday, with the Orioles (web | news) reaching him for five runs and swatting a pair of homers in a five- inning stint.

A return to the home mound might help the 34-year-old regain his early-season form, since he's compiled an impressive 7-2 record and 2.83 ERA in 13 starts on the Rangers Ballpark mound this year.

Millwood is 8-10 with a 4.87 ERA in 20 lifetime starts against Seattle and split a pair of decisions versus the Mariners earlier this year, allowing nine runs and four homers over a span of 13 1/3 innings.

Brandon Morrow gets the call tonight for Seattle and will be making his first appearance in the majors since mid-July. The highly-regarded former first- round pick had been pitching for Triple-A Tacoma over the past two months and went 5-3 with a 3.60 ERA in 10 starts for the Rainiers.

Morrow began this season as the Mariners' closer and was later moved into the rotation before being eventually sent down. The hard-throwing righty was 0-1 with a 4.55 ERA in his six starts, but did give up six homers in 27 2/3 innings of work.

The 25-year-old is just 1-4 with a 4.82 ERA in 13 career appearances against Texas, one of which was a start. Morrow's most recent major league outing came against the Rangers in a starting role, and he was saddled with a loss after giving up four runs in five innings.

Texas has won six of seven tilts from Seattle at home this season and is 9-4 overall against the Mariners in 2009.



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