Rangers 3, Rays 0: Yu Darvish pitched seven shutout innings in his season debut and Elvis Andrus belted a two-run homer in the eighth inning as visiting Texas salvaged the finale of the three-game series.

Shin-Soo Choo beat out an infield hit with two outs before Andrus drilled a 3-2 fastball from reliever Joel Peralta (0-1) into the left-field seats for a 2-0 lead. Darvish (1-0), who missed his first start due to neck stiffness, scattered seven hits and struck out seven while Joakim Soria pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save.

Ryan Hanigan, David DeJesus and Evan Longoria each doubled off Darvish for the Rays, who saw their three-game win streak come to an end. Tampa Bay starter Alex Cobb pitched seven shutout innings as well, allowing three hits and a walk while striking out six.

Darvish allowed three singles and notched all of his strikeouts through the first four innings while Cobb gave up one hit and had five strikeouts over the same span as the two right-handers dueled early on. Hanigan led off with a walk and moved to third on DeJesus’ one-out double in the fifth, but Darvish got Wil Myers on a popup and Ben Zobrist flied out to end the threat.

Hanigan doubled to lead off the seventh for the Rays before Darvish escaped without any damage, retiring the next three batters. Texas reliever Neal Cotts came on with two on and two out in the eighth to strike out Matt Joyce and the Rangers added an unearned run in the ninth on Donnie Murphy’s infield single.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Darvish struck out the first two batters he faced to become the fastest to 500 career strikeouts of anyone in baseball history – 401 2/3 innings, moving ahead of former Chicago Cubs hurler Kerry Wood (404 2/3). … Tampa Bay became the last team in the majors to commit an error when Longoria threw the ball away on Adrian Beltre’s grounder in the ninth, leading to a run. … Longoria’s double in the sixth was the 202nd of his career, tying B.J. Upton for second in franchise history.