Vaughn Provides a Little Sunlight for Angels : Baseball: He homers and drives in five runs during 8-5 victory over Devil Rays.

Mo Vaughn had to exhale when he hit his 432-foot home run, when he struck the ball hard enough to momentarily knock a horrible season from the collective conscience of a weary team. They all did.

There is little escape from a season with 89 losses. There is nowhere to hide, not for very long, not when every player will grimace at the very memory of it. So, when the cleansing moments come, when Vaughn hits a mammoth shot in the fifth inning against a 21-year-old’s flash of machismo, everyone can smile a little.

The Angels defeated the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 8-5, Wednesday night at Edison Field, where Vaughn’s three-run home run helped them to a three-game sweep, only their third of the season. Vaughn also had a two-run double in the ninth for five RBIs, and 101 RBIs for the season. He became the 13th Angel player with as many as 100 RBIs and the first since Tim Salmon two seasons ago.

For three days they beat the Devil Rays with clutch hits. They scored 19 two-out runs in the series, the loudest on Vaughn’s uppercut jolt off rookie Dan Wheeler (0-3), who tried to bully a 1-and-0 fastball past an unintimidated hitter.

In Vaughn’s previous at-bat, Wheeler flipped a 2-and-0 changeup that Vaughn swung through. Two innings later, on a 1-and-0 count and with runners at first and second, Wheeler tried the fastball.

Gone was the two-run lead Wheeler took into the middle innings. The home run was Vaughn’s team-high 29th, one more than Troy Glaus.

The runs came quickly for the Angels for two days, because their hitters became unusually patient and, perhaps, because they consistently got into the Devil Ray bullpen quickly. After Vaughn’s two-out homer in the fifth, the Angels backed starter Jarrod Washburn with three more runs with two out in the sixth, two on Gary DiSarcina’s single and another on Darin Erstad’s single.

“It’s just concentration,” interim Manager Joe Maddon said of his offense’s warming trend. “That’s just want-to. When you want to, you get things done.

“They’re seeing more pitches, getting into it, rising to the occasion.”

Washburn (3-4) pitched to a lineup that lacked Jose Canseco, which left only Fred McGriff as a real power threat. He gave up four runs in 6 2/3 innings.

Washburn jammed a lot of hitters, which resulted in a handful of soft hits for the Devil Rays. After Bubba Trammell drew a leadoff walk in the third inning, Miguel Cairo flared a one-out single into right-center and Tony Graffanino blooped a single into left-center.

The latter hit scored Trammell and the Devil Rays led, 1-0.

A winner in two of his previous three starts, Washburn pitched well to leave the inning with only that deficit. With both runners in scoring position, Washburn struck out Herbert Perry on a full-count fastball, then had McGriff pound a grounder to first baseman Darin Erstad.

The Devil Rays challenged Jim Edmonds’ arm in the fourth and took a 2-0 lead. Third base coach Greg Riddoch sent Jose Guillen on a two-out single by Trammell, and Edmonds’ throw was up the third-base line.

By contrast, the Angels lost an at-bat with a runner in scoring position in the first inning, when Vaughn hit a liner into the right-field corner.

Vaughn dragged his 250 pounds around first base and churned gamely toward second, then belly-flopped into the bag. Graffanino, the shortstop, waited with the ball. Four innings later, Vaughn eliminated all of that baserunning stuff.