Julie Jacobson / AP file

Vladimir Guerrero has carried the Angels' offense for the last four seasons.

In the interim, the pitching staff, led by starters John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Bartolo Colon and Jered Weaver, keeps the Angels in games and atop the AL West with a 49-30 record.

And there’s Guerrero. Imagine a Latino Gary Cooper who is even more reticent than the aw-shucks legendary thespian and you have the heart and soul of the Angels’ lineup. When he became a free agent after the 2003 campaign after playing eight seasons with the Montreal Expos, he was the perfect match for a low-key club in the shadows of both the city of Los Angeles and the Dodgers’ franchise.

The fact that Moreno was the first Latino owner of a major league club appealed to Guerrero. The slugger warmed to the idea of a team that would make a concerted effort to expand into the Latino market, especially behind an owner who was a marketing whiz and who had made his bones in billboards.

Guerrero has been quietly awesome. His English isn’t great, and therefore he isn’t featured on ESPN or other outlets as often as gabbier players. He is Manny Ramirez without the eccentricities and without the benefit of playing for a club with a storied past and a fanatical following in the Eastern media corridor. Guerrero’s home now is in a sprawl of suburbia near Disneyland, just off a major freeway.

He has a lifetime average of .325. Only once in the past nine seasons has he hit fewer than 30 homers; that came in 2003, his last year in Montreal, when he was slowed by a back injury that threatened to scare off potential free-agent bidders and hit only 25.

This season, besides leading the club in average,  he’s also tops in on-base percentage (.424) and slugging percentage (.565). Although some of his teammates have been hot lately, Guerrero appears to be on that temperature setting permanently.

He is on duty to protect Anaheim, even if he has to do it by himself.

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