Guerrero Needs Broad Shoulders

In the hours before he’ll see another lefty, against the likes of which he’s batting an American League-best .408, Vladimir Guerrero hears the word “famous” and crinkles the bridge of his nose.

He has been a most valuable player, an All-Star seven times over, and has spent entire baseball seasons with teams draped over his shoulders, as if they’re bucks being hauled from the woods, all the way through September.

His childlike grin and octogenarian gait stand in front of one of the game’s elite franchises, the billboard for Mike Scioscia’s grip-and-rip offense. And yet it is not his voice we hear as often as it is his bat, along with the soft moans of pitching coaches prodding his swing for holes.

But, famous?

Guerrero shakes his head.

“It’s not me,” he says.

David Ortiz, for whom fame fits like a pair of diamond-studded shades (which, incidentally, he looks great in), was born a few months before Guerrero in the Dominican Republic, and not far from Guerrero’s birthplace. Occasionally, in the winters, they’ll run into each other.

“He just built this big house where he’s from,” Ortiz says. “You go around there, though, and he’s just hanging on the corner with all his boys.”

Ortiz pauses and holds up a finger.

“He still lives where he grew up,” he says. “Think about that.”

He means it literally. He means it spiritually.

Makes sense to Guerrero.

“I’ve got the name, ‘Super-Vlad,’ ” he says, smiling at the nickname. “That’s enough.”

The Angels surely hope so. As September dawns again, the Angels are again day to day with the Oakland Athletics and straining for the run production that will make up those games. That, undeniably, will fall to Guerrero, who two seasons ago had 11 home runs, 25 runs batted in and batted .363 in the final month, 4 1/2 weeks that made him MVP and the Angels AL West champs.

He will not rally them in a team meeting or call them out in the paper. He will wait his turn to hit, and swing, swing, swing. (He sees 3.23 pitches per plate appearance, 165th among big-league regulars.)

He starts from an average of .322, with 27 homers and 99 RBI. The A’s are five games up. The Angels have 35 games left.

The sport’s most real, most unassuming superstar will lead them, or their run on division titles probably will end at two.

Guerrero doesn’t mind the responsibility.

The situation, the stretch run, the task of hauling down the A’s from behind, he says, “It’s the same. I’m going to try. I want to help the team play better. I don’t know what will happen, but I have to play hard.”

So he came up in the first inning against deliberate Boston left-hander Jon Lester on Wednesday night and put together the prototypical Vlad AB. He arrived with Orlando Cabrera at first base, two out and the Angels already down, 2-0.

The night before, in a one-run Angels win, the Red Sox had pitched him about as carefully as they could have, walking him intentionally once, and still he doubled twice.

“He’s unique,” pitching coach Dave Wallace said.

Lester got ahead of Guerrero with two high fastballs, and then Cabrera stole second on what surely would be a waste pitch, which it was. Guerrero fouled off a way-too-fat fastball, which sent alarmed catcher Javy Lopez to the mound.

That settled, Guerrero laced the next pitch into left-center field, scoring Cabrera with the Angels’ first run.

“He might be the best player in the game,” Ortiz said. “Maybe the most unbelievable player ever. It’s unbelievable, man. Sometimes we get together back home and we all play softball. That’s what it seems like when we’re playing baseball. He just loads up and crushes it.”

He is not blessed with Manny Ramirez behind him. Or Carlos Delgado. Neither Alfonso Soriano nor Carlos Lee rode in at the trading deadline.

Juan Rivera helped drive the Angels through July and August, and Garret Anderson has his moments of run production, but given the choice between Guerrero and any other Angel, there is no choice.

Only Rivera also has as many as 20 home runs, and no other Angel has as many as 70 RBIs.

Some nights, many innings, that leaves Vlad.

He was walked intentionally in the third inning and finished the night one for four at the plate.

And the Angels, despite 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position in the middle innings, still did not overtake the Red Sox.

That leaves Vlad, and that’s why the Angels need Super-Vlad.

“It’s like he’s playing a video game when he’s out there,” rookie Howie Kendrick says. “He hits everything. And then, if he doesn’t get a hit, he’s like, ‘So what? I’ve got another at-bat coming.’ ”

An AL scout, who has seen Guerrero at his best, calls the swing, “controlled violence,” adding, “He centers the ball maybe better than anybody in the game.”

Guerrero knows. He has been around long enough to understand.

It has to be him.

He smiles.

“I see the ball good,” he says. “I’m fine.”