FRISCO -- Rangers right-handed starter Yu Darvish turned in the longest start of his injury rehabilitation stint through the minor leagues Saturday, pitching six innings of scoreless ball in a game for the Rangers' Double-A affiliate the RoughRiders.

Following the start against San Antonio, a San Diego Padres affiliate, Darvish felt confident that he is ready to pitch in the Major Leagues on Saturday, his next scheduled start.

"I threw close to 90 pitches today so I feel good for that," Darvish said of the possibility of pitching for the Rangers Saturday while speaking through an interpreter. "It's kind of hard to tell right now - I have to pitch against those guys in reality but I feel like I am good to go."

The starter's main goal was to get his pitch count up. He accomplished that as he threw 87 pitches, 55 for strikes. In his previous rehab start on Tuesday, Darvish threw 68 pitches.

On Saturday Darvish gave up three hits - all singles - and walked one batter. In his five rehab starts thus far, the righty allowed nine hits and four runs, two earned, in 20 innings to go with 21 strikeouts and six walks.

Darvish's velocity topped out at 96 miles per hour Saturday, a mark he reached once in each of the first two innings. But as the RoughRiders began to score runs and the wait in between innings extended, he grew tired and took a little off his fastball and began to throw more of his off-speed pitches, especially his sinker.

"Just trying to get the early outs early in the count and the sinker was working," Darvish explained.

And now the question is if Darvish will next be seen in another minor league rehab outing or on the mound in Arlington when the Rangers face the Pittsburgh Pirates Saturday. After his six-inning outing he said he felt his arm and surgically-repaired elbow are growing stronger. But he knows he is not back to his full, dominant self and will not expect too much of himself should his next start be his Major League return.

"I don't want to put too much pressure on it so I'm just going to act like it's another rehab outing out there if I'm going back on a Major League mound next time," Darvish said.

Twitter: @AdamGrosbard