Blue Jays’ Fab Four Powering Their Way to Top : Baseball: Joe Carter, Paul Molitor, John Olerud and Ed Sprague are a big reason Toronto is closing fast in the AL East.

Eight runs, 12 hits, two home runs and one roughed up Angel pitching staff.

Those were the totals Tuesday night for that hard-hitting team from the American League East, and no, we don’t mean the Detroit Tigers.

Sure, Kirk Gibson, Cecil Fielder and Mickey Tettleton have earned a reputation as the league’s undisputed long-ball champions. But a quick check of the statistics shows that the real leaders are the Toronto Blue Jays. Remember them?

Wasn’t it just last October that they were beating the Atlanta

Braves in the World Series? Remember Kelly Gruber with that beat up batting helmet covered with pine tar? Remember Dave Winfield finally winning the big one? Remember Candy Maldonado?

Remember those guys? Well, they’re all gone. Gruber is an Angel, Winfield a Minnesota Twin, and Maldonado a Chicago Cub.

The key names to know this year are: Joe Carter, Paul Molitor, John Olerud and Ed Sprague.

They are the reason the Blue Jays lead the American League in home runs with 63. The Tigers have 55, by the way. They are the reason the Blue Jays trailed Detroit by .002 for the league lead in team batting average before Tuesday’s 8-0 victory over the Angels at Anaheim Stadium.

And they are the reason the Blue Jays, winners of 10 of 13 games, are closing fast on the AL East lead.

“I said in spring training that we have some guys who are going to score more runs than people expect,” Toronto Manager Cito Gaston said. “They haven’t proven me wrong so far.”

No one has been more productive than first baseman Olerud, whose contribution to Tuesday’s rout included a two-run home run in the second inning and a run-scoring double in the seventh.

Four homers in the last three games and a seven-game hitting streak have pushed Olerud’s league-leading batting average to an even .400.

“Three home runs in a month is usually a good month for me,” Olerud said. “I just happened to string them all in a row the last three days.”

Molitor, the designated hitter, signed with the Blue Jays as a free agent in December after 15 seasons as a Milwaukee Brewer, and Gaston is happy he no longer has to face him.

“We couldn’t get him out,” Gaston said. “He’s meant a lot to us. He’s a gamer and a motivator.”

With a single in the third, Molitor kept his average steady at .338, third-best in the AL behind Olerud and Kenny Lofton of Cleveland.

And Carter and Sprague did their part to shred Angel pitching Tuesday. Carter singled, scored one run and drove in two others with sacrifice flies and raised his average to .300. Sprague followed Olerud’s second-inning homer with a blast over the left-field wall, keeping his average at .263.

“I think we’ve got a real good lineup,” Olerud said. ‘We’re capable of scoring a lot of runs.”

Still, the numbers have come as something as a surprise for the Blue Jays. Told that they had passed Detroit for the league lead in home runs, Olerud said, “Is that right?”

Olerud has 10 homers, seven shy of his career-best for a season, and a total that has stunned him.

“I really have no explanation,” he said. “I’d rather hit for average. I like putting the ball in play. I’ve been pretty hot here for the first two months of the season. I didn’t plan on hitting .400 here in June.”