Jonathon Niese outpitched Cole Hamels with six strong innings, ending the left-hander's career-best winning streak at 12 games in Pittsburgh's 9-1 interleague victory over the Rangers on Friday night. Andrew McCutchen had one of four home runs for the Pirates, who won their fifth straight and spoiled Banister's first game against them after leaving the only franchise he had known — as a player, coach and instructor at all levels — to become Texas manager last season. Hamels (5-1) gave up eight hits and six runs — five earned — in 4 2/3 innings, his shortest outing since the start before throwing a no-hitter in his final appearance for Philadelphia last July 25. Niese (5-2) threw five shutout innings before Adrian Beltre's leadoff homer in the sixth. Hamels was trying to set the Rangers' franchise record for consecutive victories, a mark he will share with Bobby Witt from 1990, while also giving the first glimpse of the potential top of the Texas rotation a night before right-hander Yu Darvish's return from Tommy John surgery. [...] he gave up two homers, walked two and hit a pair of batters in his first loss in eight decisions at Globe Life Park and just his second regular-season defeat since joining the Rangers. Jung Ho Kang, Pittsburgh's designated hitter, hit an opposite-field three-run homer to right in a five-run fifth that blossomed when six of the last eight hitters faced by Hamels reached base after a throwing error by first baseman Mitch Moreland. Darvish missed the end of the 2014 season with right elbow inflammation and had more issues while making just one spring appearance last year before undergoing elbow surgery.