Gwynn to Have Surgery Now; Padres Win : Baseball: Padre star’s operation will be Wednesday. Manager Greg Riddoch finds the timing of Gwynn’s problem and the development of Greg Harris and Larry Andersen to be ironic. The Padres defeat Houston, 6-1.

Even as the Padres got a glimpse of what might have been, they got a taste of reality Monday.

While Greg Harris pitched another fine game, Thomas Howard drove in five runs and Larry Andersen earned his 10th save in a 6-1 victory over the Houston Astros, Tony Gwynn was facing the inevitable. He is scheduled for surgery Wednesday on his aching left knee.

Padres Manager Greg Riddoch saw it as another ironic twist on a season in which he has used 48 players that the team’s star was lost as Harris and Andersen, who’ve both seen considerable time on the disabled list, are rounding into form. The victory, before a crowd of 19,175, maintained the Padres’ hold on third place.

Harris, who missed much of the season with tendinitis in his elbow, was making only his ninth start at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, where the Padres have won six consecutive games and where four of his six victories have come. “It’d have been a shame if we’d have had Harris for those three months,” Riddoch said sarcastically. “We might’ve squeezed out a win or two, you think?”

Howard’s three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh broke up a pitching duel between Greg Harris and Houston rookie Brian Williams, making his major league debut.

The two locked up in a scoreless tie for six innings until Williams--who worked out of several early jams--fell behind in the count to Howard and served up the home run that was enough to make a winner out of Harris (6-5). Andersen pitched the last 1 2/3 innings.

Howard added a two-run single in a three-run eighth for the final margin, tying him for the team high of five runs batted in for a game. Darrin Jackson accomplished the feat in August, and Benito Santiago matched that last week.

With Gwynn on the shelf, Howard figures to get some playing time in the final three weeks. “We lose Tony and the other guy gets five ribbies,” Riddoch said. “That’s great.”

Gwynn was examined before the game by Dr. Jan Fronek, who will perform the surgery Wednesday at the Scripps Clinic. “It just didn’t get better,” Riddoch said. “He’d go out there on one leg if he could. He has since the All-Star break. We were starting to play good, get healthy and play some baseball and he wanted to be part of that. Who knows, with that guy, in two weeks he may be bugging the devil out of me (to play).”

However, a two- to six-week recovery period is expected.

Harris, who lasted 7 2/3 innings Monday, has pitched superbly at home, with a 1.99 earned run average and two shutouts in eight starts previous to Monday. During that stretch he has held opponents to a .219 batting average.

Harris had to pitch out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, mostly caused by two-out walks to Jeff Bagwell and Luis Gonzalez.

In the sixth, the Padre right-hander faced a first-and-third, no-out situation when the first two Houston batters singled. But a strikeout-caught stealing double play and a groundout to short left the runner at third and preserved the scoreless tie.

“Harris did a pretty good job. He didn’t have his usual great stuff but he battled back from some situations,” Riddoch said.

Williams, 22, was acquired with a 1990 draft choice the Astros were awarded between the first and second rounds for San Francisco’s signing of free agent Kevin Bass. Drafted out of the University of South Carolina--where he played every position but second base and catcher and was a noted hitter--he made a rapid rise through the Astros system this summer, putting in stops in Class A, AA and AAA. He was a combined 8-6 with a 3.30 earned run average in 25 minor league starts, and lost two Pacific Coast League playoff games before his callup.

One of six first-year players in the Astros’ bargain basement lineup Monday and one of three rookies now in the Houston rotation, Williams eased through the first two innings but began laboring in the third and worked out of the stretch much of the time afterward.

The Padres got two hits in the third but stranded Bip Roberts at third. Harris’ double-play ball while trying to advance a runner helped derail the threat. The Padres got their leadoff man, Tony Fernandez, on base the next inning but he was caught stealing to end the inning. Williams also withstood several loud outs, notably a long drive to center by Fred McGriff.

Williams had more problems in the bottom of the fifth, when Jackson led off with a hard single and reached second on a groundout. But the Padres were frustrated again when Bagwell made the play on Harris’ smash grounder wide of first and beat him to the bag to end the inning.

The Padres finally broke the scoring drought in the seventh. McGriff walked and Santiago singled to put runners on first and second, and after Jackson unsuccessfully tried to sacrifice, forcing McGriff at third, Howard hammered a 3-and-1 pitch over the left-field fence for his fourth home run of the year and a 3-0 lead.

Houston responded with a run in the top of the eighth when Bagwell launched his 15th homer of the season into the left-field seats, and when Ken Caminiti lined a single to center, Harris left for Andersen, who struck out Andujar Cedeno for the last out. Andersen pitched an uneventful ninth.

With Williams lifted after the seventh, the Padres jumped on another Houston rookie, reliever Al Osuna, in the eighth, Tony Fernandez singling in a run as the Padres opened the inning with three consecutive hits. A walk and another single loaded the bases for Howard, who singled in two more runs to break the game open.

Riddoch wasn’t promising that Howard would be in Gwynn’s spot every day, but he said Howard probably would be in right field tonight, and he has Howard programmed to accept things on a day-to-day basis.

“We’re playing pretty good ball right now, trying to finish up strong,” Howard said. “I sat down with Greg before the season, he told me I’d be coming off the bench, pinch hit, pinch run, spot start. I had no choice. I could’ve gone back to Las Vegas but I didn’t think I had nothing to prove in Triple-A.

“The start of the season I had my swing together. Then there was a long stretch where I didn’t play much and my timing was really off. The last two weeks I’m trying to get myself together mentally, not worry so much about stats and stuff, but get my stroke together.”

When the Padres look back, this may seem like the season that never quite came together.