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WASHINGTON -- Right-handed pitcher Tanner Roark burst upon the major league scene in 2014 as he won 15 games as a member of the Washington Nationals starting rotation.Last year he spent most of the year in the bullpen as the team signed Max Scherzer to a free agent contract prior to the 2015 campaign.Roark returned to the rotation this year and on Wednesday afternoon he will have a chance to tie a career high as he goes for his 15th win of the year against the New York Mets. He was drafted in the 25th round out of the University of Illinois by the Texas Rangers in 2008 and traded to Washington two years later.He went from being a 15-game winner to going to the bullpen, said Clint Robinson, who knows the feeling as backup first baseman to Ryan Zimmerman. As a professional you kind of want to be at the highest level. I know it had to be tough for him (in 2015). He has been a rock for us all year.Roark has a 1.88 ERA in his career against the Mets. He has thrown 186 1/3 innings this year; he went 198 2/3 in 2014.We are glad to have him. Tanner is one of those guys that grits his teeth and gets the job done, Robinson said.Fellow right-hander Robert Gsellman of the Mets will start on Wednesday in Washington. He began the season with Double-A Binghamton of the Eastern League. The California native got his first win against the Nationals at home Sept. 3 as he went six innings and gave up one run on six hits.The Mets are now nine games behind the first-place Nationals in the National League East but are very much in the wild card hunt after an exciting 4-3 win in 10 innings on Tuesday to the Nationals.New York will got for its seventh straight series win Wednesday.We have a chance to win tomorrow, Mets manager Terry Collins said after rookie T.J. Rivera hit his first career homer, in the 10th, to win the game Tuesday.The Nationals had won their last five games decided by a run.We are not giving up whatsoever. We are right there. It is all about getting the wild card spot, said Josh Edgin, a reliever for the Mets. Maybe we will catch the Nats. We are definitely pushing for the wild card. Maybe we will meet (the Nationals) in the playoffs.Edgin is back with the Mets after missing out on the 2015 season and the World Series berth. Washington won the East title in 2014.They are the top of our division right now, Edgin said of the Nationals. We have to try and win every game. We are trying to get that wild card. Unless something drastic happens that is what we are shooting for.With a large lead the Nationals will try to fine tune their lineup down the stretch. And that means trying to get first baseman Ryan Zimmerman and catcher Wilson Ramos out of extended hitting slumps.Zimmerman is 4-for-28 on the current homestand and 9-for-57 in his last 16 games.Ramos is 5-for-23 on the homestand and 10-for-57 in his last 16 games.Nobody takes it well. It happens, manager Dusty Baker said of slumps. I have to play him enough to keep his confidence up. We need him. I think the guys are pulling for him harder than anybody on the team.Baker hopes Zimmerman can get hot down the stretch and in the playoffs.A couple of weeks is all we need. Confidence is a big key. He is certainly not old. He is not overweight, Baker said.Roark was the losing pitcher Sept. 3 in New York in a 3-1 setback to the Mets and Gsellman. In his previous start Roark went six innings and allowed one run on six hits and two walks with eight strikeouts against the Philadelphia Phillies while he did not figure in the decision on Friday.Minnesota Vikings Jerseys Sale . -- Five former Kansas City Chiefs players who were on the team between 1987 and 1993 filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the team hid and even lied about the risks of head injuries during that time period when there was no collective bargaining agreement in place in the NFL. Kirk Cousins Vikings Youth Jersey .J. Ellis hit two-run homers and the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres 4-0 Saturday night. http://www.fansvikingsteamstore.com/fran-tarkenton-vikings-jersey.html . Andreas Johnson had a goal and two assists while Jacob de la Rose also scored for Sweden (2-0-0). Esa Lindell and Rasmus Ristolainen replied for Finland (1-1-0) Lindell opened the scoring for Finland just 41 seconds into the game, but the hosts quickly regained their composure and tied the score less than four minutes later on Wennbergs first of the game. Stefon Diggs Vikings Jersey .In my heart and mind Im competing for India, luge competitor Shiva Keshavan told The Associated Press in an email interview. Every day Im flooded with messages from Indians all over the world telling me they are supporting me. Harrison Smith Jersey Cheap . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats.RIO DE JANEIRO -- After 1,192 days, Brazils run of hosting mega-sports events came to an end Sunday at the Paralympic Games.It began with soccers Confederations Cup in 2013, extended to the 2014 World Cup, ran through IOC President Thomas Bachs goodbye speech last month at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and finished with the closing ceremony of the Paralympics before 45,000 spectators at Rios Maracana stadium.Awarded when Brazil was a rising economic power, the sports pageants focused unprecedented attention on the country -- much of it unwanted.As the shows went on, Brazil plunged into a deep recession. A billion-dollar corruption scandal buffeted state-run oil company Petrobras, and President Dilma Rousseff was removed from office in an impeachment trial just days after the Olympics closed.This all left a very mixed legacy, Mauricio Santoro, an international relations expert at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press. We are going to need some years to evaluate what was the impact, the worth of these events for Brazil.By a conservative estimate, Brazil spent about $30 billion organizing the events with a mix of public and private money that included the construction of four white-elephant soccer stadiums for the World Cup. All four are in cities without major teams.Rio fared better with the Olympics, getting a metro line extension, bus lines, and light-rail. But much of the investment was aimed at Rios upscale suburb of Barra da Tijuca -- not at the citys sprawling favelas, or slums. The Olympic Park and Athletes Village there will be molded into high-priced commercial and residential properties now that the games are done.I think the Olympics and Paralympics were a boost to the self-esteem of Brazil, Santoro said. They happened when everything was going so bad in Brazil. The mere fact they happened without serious problems, without an infrastructure disaster, without a terrorist attack, made Brazil feel better about itself.Brazils reputation away from home is another matter. Only a handful of foreign leaders attended the Olympics -- compared to about 100 four years ago in London.The state of Rio de Janeiro is broke and defaulting on bond payments. Some schools have suspended classes, and hospitals are understaffed. Only a last-minute bailout of about 250 million reals ($76.5 million) from the federal and local governments saved the Paralympics from a shortfall in the organizing committees privately funded operating budget.There was a feeling that Brazil is such a big mess, Santoro said. How could you have a good opinion of this country?Organizers bragged about legacy, but failed to deliver on a big promise made to secure the bid: the clean-up of Guanabara Bay, an open sewer that receives much of the citys untreated raw waste.Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes acknowledged the clean-up was a missed opportunity, one the Internnational Olympic Committee overlooked and often defended.dddddddddddd.The Olympics endured some rough going, plagued by empty seats, organizational glitches and scandals -- one involving American swimmer Ryan Lochte and another in which high-ranking IOC member Patrick Hickey was arrested for scalping tickets. Hickey is still in Brazil awaiting trial and denies any wrongdoing.Bach also skipped the opening of the Paralympics to attend a mourning ceremony for former West Germany president and foreign minister Walter Scheel. His office said he missed Sundays closing ceremony to be in New York to take part in the United Nations Refugee Summit.Police investigators in Brazil want to question Bach about email exchanges he had with Hickey related to Irelands ticket allocation. Hes not accused of wrongdoing, but he could be held if he arrives in Brazil.Against most predictions, the Paralympics were a smoother ride with grassroots support. Arenas were packed with many tickets selling at just $3 apiece, in contrast to the Olympics, where many tickets were sold as part of high-end hospitality packages and often went unused.The Paralympics also topped the Olympics in compelling stories, and in some performances.No story was more moving than that of 37-year-old Belgian Marieke Vervoort, who won a silver medal in wheelchair racing. She has a degenerative spine disease and talked of plans to end her life by euthanasia when she can no longer endure the pain.For me, I think death is something like they operate on you, you go to sleep and you never wake up, Vervoort said. For me, its something peaceful.The top four finishers in the mens 1,500 -- in the T13 class for visually impaired runners -- all had better times than the Olympic champion in Rio, American Matthew Centrowitz. Abdellatif Baka of Algeria won in 3 minutes, 48.29 seconds. Centrowitz ran 3:50.00 in an admittedly slow, tactical race.German amputee long-jumper Marcus Rehm, who jumps with a carbon fiber blade and won gold in Rio, also holds the long jump world record of 8.40 meters. This is better than the winning jump in the Rio Olympics at 8.38 meters.There was tragedy, too, when Iranian Bahman Golbarnezhad, 48, died Saturday after crashing in a road-cycling race.China topped the medal table at the Paralympics, which is increasingly driven by nationalism -- much like the Olympics. Britain, Ukraine and the United States were next on the table.The Paralympics are a high-performance sporting event between countries, IPC spokesman Craig Spence said. The goal is to win the most gold medals here. Thats what every sport is about. Its about winning.---Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWatter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP . His