ARLINGTON, Texas -- Texas Rangers right-hander Yu Darvish picked the right night to have his best start of the season.

In his final playoff tuneup, Darvish struck out 12 Tampa Bay batters in six innings as Texas wrapped up home-field advantage throughout the postseason with a 3-1 victory over the Rays on Friday.

As Darvish (7-5) looks ahead to his first postseason outing with the Rangers, he will carry the momentum of a start in which he walked one, threw 70 of his 97 pitches for strikes and allowed just one run.

That next start will likely come in Game 2 of the American League Division Series on Oct. 7, and it will be tough to surpass his start against Tampa Bay.

"I had good results today," said Darvish, whose 12 strikeouts were the most he has had in start since 2014. "That was a good sign for the playoffs. Overall I was commanding my pitches and I feel good about all of my pitches. That was a good outing today."

Texas gave Darvish early support with Adrian Beltre's RBI single off Matt Andriese (8-8) in the first inning. The Rangers doubled the lead when Carlos Beltran lined a homer to right in the third inning.

Tampa Bay got to Darvish for a run in the sixth, as Evan Longoria trimmed the lead to 2-1 with an RBI double to left-center. But with Longoria representing the tying run at second, Darvish struck out the next three batters.

Those were the final three batters Darvish faced as he surpassed 10 strikeouts in a start for the 28th time since the start of the 2012 season, the fourth-highest total in the majors.

"He was extremely aggressive in the zone, had a good hard fastball," Texas manager Jeff Banister said. "The secondary stuff was swing and miss against a very aggressive club. I felt like after the first hitter, his tempo was a little not as quick as we've seen. I think (catcher Jonathan) Lucroy went out and talked to him and got him back on pace and really just explosive stuff tonight. It was great to see from a guy that has been in an upward trend."

The Rangers scored again in the bottom of the sixth when Rougned Odor blasted his team-high 33rd homer to right.

Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash knew his team had its work cut out for it against Darvish.

"Darvish really had it going," Cash said. "He racked up a bunch of punchouts. Made it difficult basically for our entire lineup. Pretty unique, a guy that can throw 92, 93 and dial it up to 97, 98 when he wants to. Fastball, slider early on, then it looked like he went to the bigger breaking ball later to some of the lefties. Just changing speeds like that makes it very difficult."

Andriese was touched for seven hits and three runs in his 5 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked one and felt like he pitched well except for the two homers he allowed.

"That's a tough lineup over there," Andriese said. "I made pitches when I needed to certain innings. Left a changeup in the zone for Odor to hit, and Beltran jumped on a fastball. It wasn't a bad outing by any means, kind of a decent one to go into the off-season with."

Texas got three scoreless innings from its bullpen, which stretched its scoreless streak to a club-record 29 2/3 innings. Sam Dyson closed out Tampa Bay for his 38th save.

Beltre and Odor each had two hits for Texas. Longoria had two doubles, accounting for half the four Tampa Bay hits.

NOTES: The Rangers activated OF Shin-Soo Choo from the 15-day disabled list. Choo had been on the disabled list since Aug. 16 after sustaining a fracture in his left forearm after getting hit by a pitch. ... This series marks the first time in Texas history the Rangers haven't played an American League West team to end the regular-season schedule. ... With 33 homers, Texas 2B Rougned Odor has a chance to be just the second second baseman to lead the Rangers in homers for a season (Ian Kinsler, 2011). ... If Tampa Bay 3B Evan Longoria is in the lineup both Saturday and Sunday, he will become just the fourth active player to play in at least 160 games in four straight seasons. Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez and Ichiro Suzuki are the other three.