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        SAN DIEGO — When Jack McKeon replaced Ron Villone with Scott Williamson in Saturday's eighth inning, he used the strategy he has tried successfully dozens of times in the last year and a half, when the Reds' world was sunnier.

        These days, the Reds' world is a condemned zone. So, naturally, McKeon's move backfired in a 3-1 loss to San Diego.

        The crucial sequence of managerial chess moves at Qualcomm Stadium brought Tony Gwynn, the finest hitter of this era, to the plate against Williamson with runners on first and second base, one out in the eighth and the score deadlocked 1-1. As he has done so often while winning eight batting titles, Gwynn singled to drive in the tiebreaking run and propel the San Diego Padres to victory over the staggering Reds.

        Cincinnati (32-34) has fallen 6¹/₂ games behind first-place St. Louis in the National League Central while losing 10 of 11 games and 14 of its last 19. While the Reds' slide doesn't appear close to ending, their three-city trip will conclude here today.

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        Maybe the promise of coming home will improve the mood of the Reds, some of whom were openly grumbling about the wisdom of inviting Gwynn to bat.

        “When you're going bad, every move is wrong, and when you're going right, every move is OK,” McKeon said.

        The situation: Villone (6-4), who pitched splendidly, retired Carlos Hernandez on a deep fly ball to open the inning before yielding Ruben Rivera's single. Villone's poor pickoff throw moved Rivera to second base. Damian Jackson walked after fouling off four 3-2 pitches.

        With right-handed batter Chris Gomez on deck to pinch hit for reliever Kevin Walker (3-0), McKeon played the percentages and removed the left-handed Villone for the right-handed Williamson.

        Asked if he knew the Padres would counter with Gwynn, the 40-year-old who no longer plays every day and was lurking on the bench, McKeon said: “Oh, yeah, sure. But I thought (Villone) looked like he was running out of gas and I thought (Williamson) was the best guy to strike a guy out or get the double play. If I had to do it over again ... I gambled and lost, I guess.”

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        Villone had thrown 109 pitches. He didn't answer questions afterward. Gomez, batting .234, was 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. Gwynn had struck out just four times in 125 at-bats.

        Even Williamson wondered how he wound up in this situation.

        “You definitely don't want to see Tony Gwynn right there with runners on first and second base,” Williamson said. “The team doesn't want to see Tony Gwynn come up. I think we probably could have avoided that. But you have to go at him. You can't walk the guy, because then you have one out and a (sacrifice fly) gets the guy in anyway. So I have to do the best I possibly could.”

        Williamson thought his first pitch was a strike, but plate umpire Alfonzo Marquez disagreed. “If the ump would have given me a first-pitch strike, I think it probably would have been a little bit different outcome,” Williamson said.

        Marquez soon called a strike on a suspiciously low 3-0 pitch.

        Then Williamson threw an inside fastball, which Gwynn turned into one of his textbook line drives into left-center field. “He did what he's always done. He put the ball in play,” Williamson said of Gwynn's 2,356th career single. “I don't care whose fastball it is — Mark Wohlers', Robb Nen's — you can't get it past that guy.”

        McKeon defended his choice of Williamson, who had 73 strikeouts in 49ö innings: “He's come in and thrown three pitches and struck guys out. Good, quality major-league hitters. But he got behind on the count ...

        “You know you're going to get (Gwynn) or (Ryan) Klesko. I still felt my guy could handle the task. It didn't work. Other times, it's worked.”

        Former Red Eric Owens added a single to center, scoring Jackson. That essentially finished the punchless Reds. Cincinnati received Ken Griffey Jr.'s 19th homer in the third inning but mustered four singles and moved just two runners into scoring position against Padres rookie Adam Eaton, who worked 7ö innings.

        “As we've talked about all the time, when you get down to that nitty-gritty with nothing on the (score)boards, there's no margin for error,” McKeon said.

        Or, as Reds first-base coach Dave Collins said: “You can look at this game a whole lot of different ways. The bottom line is, we just didn't get it done.”

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