He's the defensive half of the Angels' catching platoon, the one who supposedly can't hit, the guy one Orange County newspaper blogger referred to earlier this season as a "busted prospect."
Monday afternoon, Jeff Mathis was a playoff hero, the guy who touched off a wild celebration in Angel Stadium after he pulverized an Alfredo Aceves slider for a two-out, run-scoring double to left-center field in the 11th inning.
Mathis' hit, which followed Howie Kendrick's two-out single to center field, gave the Angels a dramatic 5-4 walk-off victory over the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
Kendrick scored all the way from first, popping up after his slide into the plate and landing in the waiting arms of on-deck hitter Erick Aybar as a crowd of 44,911 erupted.
Mathis spiked his helmet to the ground near second base and pointed to his mother and grandmother in the crowd before being engulfed by a mob of back-slapping teammates.
The victory breathed life and, possibly, momentum into an Angels team that suffered a devastating 13-inning Game 2 loss in Yankee Stadium on Saturday night but now trails the best-of-seven series, two games to one. Game 4 is tonight in Angel Stadium.
"Man, that was a crazy game, an emotional roller coaster, up, down, up, down," center fielder Torii Hunter said after the third postseason walk-off win in franchise history. "We were so happy one inning and so sad the next. I promise you, that's one of the best games I've ever been involved in. My heart is hurting right now."
The game was filled with so much tension, so many twists and turns, that a regulation nine innings couldn't contain it.
The Yankees took a 3-0 lead on solo home runs by Derek Jeter in the first inning, Alex Rodriguez in the fourth and Johnny Damon in the fifth, all off Angels starter Jered Weaver.
Kendrick, whose first-half struggles got him demoted to triple-A Salt Lake in June, hit a solo homer off Yankees starter Andy Pettitte in the fifth to make it 3-1.
Bobby Abreu ended an 0-for-11 ALCS skid with a single in the sixth, and Vladimir Guerrero silenced a legion of critics -- most of them Angels fans fed up with his feeble swings -- by hitting a two-out, two-run home run to left to make it 3-3.
For Guerrero, who went one for seven and stranded eight baserunners in Game 2, it ended a string of 86 playoff at-bats without a homer; his last was a game-tying grand slam in Game 3 of the 2004 division series against the Red Sox.
