NEW YORK -- It certainly appears that trip to Las Vegas turned Travis dArnaud into a much more confident hitter. Cheap Jordan Wholesale Free Shipping . The rookie catcher snapped an eighth-inning tie with a two-run double, and the New York Mets overcame an early injury to starter Jonathon Niese, beating the skidding Texas Rangers 6-5 Friday night to stop a four-game slide. "Felt really good," dArnaud said. "Its a big win for us to start the homestand." Lucas Duda hit a two-run homer off Yu Darvish, and the Mets opened a 10-game homestand with their second victory in nine games. An angry Niese left in the first with a bruised lower back after he was hit by Alex Rios line drive. X-rays were negative, the team said. Star third baseman David Wright missed his seventh straight game with a sore left shoulder, but fill-in Eric Campbell had three hits and an RBI for New York. Carlos Torres, pressed into long relief when Niese was injured, gave up two runs in 4 2-3 valuable innings. "Nobody expects stuff like that to happen. It does. This is baseball," Torres said. "Whoever they call down for, they step up and go out there and go do their job." Shin-Soo Choo hit a leadoff homer, and Adrian Beltre also went deep for the Rangers, who have dropped six in a row and 14 of 16. Their 10-game losing streak on the road is the clubs longest since a 12-game skid in 2003. "One day the pitching is really good, and one day the offence isnt helping," Choo said. "Right now, everything bad is coming together at the same time." Bobby Abreu drew a leadoff walk from Aaron Poreda (2-1) in the eighth and Campbell singled off Jason Frasor with one out before dArnaud sent a drive up the alley in right-centre. Batting .180 when he was sent to Triple-A Las Vegas in early June, dArnaud quickly went on a power-hitting tear in the Pacific Coast League. Brought back to the big leagues, he is hitting .303 with six RBIs in nine games since he was recalled. "I just try to keep my mind at ease and keep everything simple and not overstress myself, and thats been paying off," dArnaud said. Jenrry Mejia (5-3) retired Rios with two runners in scoring position to end the eighth. Mejia allowed an RBI single by Adam Rosales in the ninth before retiring pinch-hitter Robinson Chirinos on a tricky popup to finish a plodding game on Fireworks Night that took 4 hours, 8 minutes. Darvish, pushed back a day because of rain Thursday in Baltimore, entered with dominant stats against NL teams. But he was off in this one, allowing four runs and five hits in five innings. "He was a little erratic with his command, but I thought he did a good job of righting the ship there in the last three innings," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. Choo hit his 13th career leadoff homer, second this season, on Nieses third pitch. Moments later, Rios drive nailed Niese on the left side of his lower back. He recovered in time to get Rios at first base -- the only out he got -- before manager Terry Collins, pitching coach Dan Warthen and trainer Ray Ramirez came out to check on the left-hander. Niese repeatedly told Collins he was fine, but was removed without trying a warmup pitch. Torres was given all the time he needed to get loose. "It was precaution more than anything," Collins said. Niese fired his glove against the dugout wall and knocked over a bucket of bubble gum before disappearing down the tunnel. The teams most reliable starter this season, Niese was done after 12 pitches. He has gone 21 straight starts without allowing more than three earned runs -- the longest active streak in the majors. "Theres not much to say other than Im fine. I didnt want to be taken out. I just felt like I was cheated there a little bit," Niese said. Elvis Andrus had his second consecutive three-hit game for the Rangers. Darvish doubled to the left-centre fence for his second hit in 11 major league at-bats -- the first for extra bases. NOTES: Rather than risk a weather-related flight delay, the Rangers bused from Baltimore to New York after Thursday nights loss. Washington said it took about 3 hours, 15 minutes, and the team arrived around 3:30 a.m. ... Mets RHP Dillon Gee (strained right lat) went six innings in a rehab start for Class-A Brooklyn, striking out 10. He threw 75 pitches and gave up one run and three hits. ... Before the game, there was a video tribute and a moment of silence for former Mets GM Frank Cashen, the architect of their 1986 championship team. Cashen died Monday, and the Mets are honouring him by wearing a memorial patch with his initials on their sleeves. ... Wright hopes to play Saturday. Cheap Jordans For Sale Wholesale . Catch the action live on TSN2 at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. The Wild lead the Northwest Division and look to get back into the win column after having a season-high seven-game winning streak cut short with Tuesdays 2-1 loss at Winnipeg in the finale of a five-game road trip (4-1-0). Wholesale Retro Jordans China . -- The Grand Rapids Griffins scored three goals in 33 seconds of the second period en route to defeating the Hamilton Bulldogs 6-1 in American Hockey League action on Friday.Harrison, NJ (SportsNetwork.com) - Sporting Kansas Citys MLS Cup defense will begin on Thursday when the club travels to Red Bull Arena to face Red Bull New York in the Eastern Conference play-in game. Kansas City finished the 2013 regular season in second place, one point back of the MLS Supporters Shield-winning Red Bulls. Sporting went on to win MLS Cup in the playoffs, but the 2014 campaign has been a significant deviation from last seasons success. Once in the discussion for the top seed in the East, a poor second half to the season yielded an abysmal 3-8-1 record after the All-Star Game, dropping Sporting to fifth place in the table. Kansas City concluded its regular season on Sunday with a disappointing 2-0 home loss to the Red Bulls. SKC head coach Peter Vermes cited the teams exhaustion as one of the main factors for the demise. To me, this isnt a bad loss from the point of view that the guys fought and tried, theyre just tired, Vermes said of the loss to RBNY. One is you make technical or tactical errors and the other is you make psychological errors when youre tired, and the guys are. There was really nothing we could do. Im not sure if Im not being clear, but when you have as many guys out as we do, at some point you have to understand you cant replace those guys. We have a salary cap. So were asking guys that are not regulars, not ready yet, to be 34-game times 90-type players. And theyre having to play like that on a regular basis. And not just through one competition, its been multiple. Ive painted those examples before, but I dont walk around with the guys and paint excuses to them based on that. We have to get healthy and I think that if our guys are recovered and healthy, we can give any teamm in this league a good game. Cheap Jordans From China. The Red Bulls have also had to contend with CONCACAF Champions League fixtures this season, but head coach Mike Petke seems to have managed the extra fixtures more appropriately. New York essentially enters the postseason at full fitness, a testament to Petkes rotation policy. The Red Bulls rested captain Thierry Henry for Sundays meeting with Sporting, but the team rallied and earned a result in what Petke identified as one of the most enjoyable matches hes witnessed since assuming the managerial duties of his former club. This was one of the more enjoyable games since Ive been a coach, because you put a game plan out and you watch it executed, its a fun thing, Petke said after the match. Thats not always the case, but these guys were disciplined, they did exactly what we wanted to do and Im happy for them. We didnt celebrate like we won anything. Its just a good thing now we can go home and have a home game. Bradley Wright-Phillips stole the headlines by notching both goals on the night to finish with 27 goals on the campaign, tying Chris Wondolowski and Roy Lassiter for the single-season scoring record. But according to goalkeeper Luis Robles, the shutting out SKC striker Dom Dwyer was the biggest contributing factor to helping the Red Bulls march on to three points on Sunday. The thing that stuck out was defensively we limited Kansas Citys chances, said Robles, who only had to make two saves en route to recording his sixth clean sheet of the year. Realistically, they only had the one in the beginning with Dwyer and after that we won every second ball, were chasing balls down and it was a performance that we can really be proud of. ' ' '
