Ex-51s second baseman leads Tacoma to sweep

Kevin Howard haunted his former 51s teammates Friday night in helping the Tacoma Rainiers cap a four-game Pacific Coast League series sweep in Tacoma, Wash.

Howard, a former Las Vegas second baseman, went 3-for-4 with two home runs and five RBIs in the Rainiers' 10-3 win.

Howard batted .257 with three homers and 27 RBIs in 60 games for the 51s this season before being released. Before Friday, he was 0-for-9 in his three games with Tacoma.

Starting at shortstop and batting ninth, he belted a two-out, three-run homer in the second inning to give the Rainiers a 4-0 lead. The hit came one batter after a Las Vegas error had kept the inning alive.

Howard added an RBI single in the sixth inning and a two-out solo homer in the eighth.

Shawn Garrett and Craig Wilson also hit solo homers for Tacoma (68-58), which has won 14 of its last 17 games.

Luis Maza, John Lindsey and Blake DeWitt had fourth-inning singles, with DeWitt's hit driving in the first run for the 51s (64-63). Their other two runs came on Chin-lung Hu's RBI groundout in the seventh and an eighth-inning wild pitch.

Maza, Lindsey, DeWitt, Hu and Xavier Paul each had two of the 12 hits for Las Vegas, which has lost seven of eight.

Andrew Baldwin (9-5) allowed one run on seven hits in six innings to get the win. Heath Totten (5-5) lost after giving up five earned runs on 10 hits in six innings.