Phoenix ? Emil Brown had three doubles among his career-high four hits, John Buck hit a two-run homer, and J.P. Howell won an impressive major-league debut in Kansas City’s 8-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday night.

The Royals collected 18 hits – 14 off Brad Halsey in the worst start of his career – to snap a two-game skid and improve to 3-2 on their road trip. Terrence Long drove in three runs with three hits. David DeJesus and Tony Graffanino also had three hits for Kansas City.

Brown scored on all of Long’s RBIs, drove in two and made a face-in-the-grass dive to catch Troy Glaus’ sinking liner in right field to end the seventh inning.

Arizona announced it was finishing the game under protest in the eighth inning, when Royals third baseman Mark Teahen turned a catch into a double play after falling on his fielding arm and dropping the ball. Teahen picked up the ball, tagged third, then threw to second for the double play.

Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin argued that Teahen dropped the ball on purpose.

Howell (1-0) allowed one run on four hits and two walks in five innings. His eight strikeouts tied the franchise record for a first big-league appearance, set by Paul Splittorff on Sept. 23, 1970.

Howell left with a 4-0 lead after allowing no-out singles to Glaus and Clark in the sixth. Andrew Sisco came on and got Green to hit into a double play, while Glaus advanced to third. Then Jose Cruz Jr. hit a run-scoring single.

The Royals responded with three runs in the seventh – two charged to Halsey (4-4) after allowing a single to Brown and an RBI single to Long.

Long was aboard three batters later when Buck drove a pitch by reliever Jose Valverde an estimated 416 feet onto the overhanging deck in center field for a 7-1 lead.

Halsey allowed 14 hits and six runs in six-plus innings. It was the rookie’s 19th career start

Kansas City made it 8-1 on Brown’s second ground-rule double of the game in the eighth, also against Valverde.

Arizona pulled to 8-3 in the eighth, when Tony Clark and Shawn Green hit back-to-back homers against Mike Wood. It added two more runs in the ninth on RBIs by Luis Gonzalez and Green to make it 8-5.

The Royals had five straight one-out hits in the first inning and scored three times. Brown got an RBI with a ground-rule double that jumped the fence in right-center, and Long followed with a two-run single.

The Royals loaded the bases before Glaus caught Howell’s liner to third to end the threat.

Brown doubled to lead off the third, and Ruben Gotay made it 4-0 with a sacrifice fly.

Notes: The starting pitchers both went to the University of Texas. Howell helped the Longhorns to the 2004 College World Series final and was 7-2 with their 2002 championship team. … Glaus caught three liners in the first four innings, ending the second with a double play when he held onto a smash by Graffanino and threw to first to double up DeJesus. … The Royals are 7-4 under manager Buddy Bell. … Clark’s homer, his ninth, was his career 200th. … The Diamondbacks had back-to-back homers three times this season, last on June 4 (Alex Cintron and Gonzalez) in Philadelphia.