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Latest JeffMathis Stories

No-Hitters Are Overrated Anyway

I remember when I was a kid I went to a White Sox game against the Yankees with my dad. It was a special game in history, because it happened to be the day that Andy Hawkins threw a no-hittter against the White Sox. Oh, and he also lost the game 4-0.

I was only nine years old at the time, so I didn't quite understand the significance of what I'd just seen, I just knew that the White Sox had one, and that it was a good thing. The idea of how Hawkins must have felt after the Yankees committed three errors in that 8th inning to lose the game never crossed my mind. Looking back on it now, though, I'll bet he was pretty pissed off.

Wouldn't you be? At the very least you have to figure Jered Weaver probably is.
Weaver held the Dodgers without a hit through six innings before being removed for a pinch-hitter and turning things over to Arredondo, who retired the Dodgers in order in the seventh and eighth innings. The game did not qualify as an official no-hitter because the Dodgers did not bat in their half of the ninth inning.

The Dodgers scored in the fifth on a pair of errors, a stolen base and a sacrifice fly. Weaver committed the first error when he couldn't cleanly field leadoff hitter Matt Kemp's dribbler up the first base line.
Kemp would go on to steal second base and move up to third after Jeff Mathis saw a cute girl in the stands and wanted to impress her* by playing catch with Torii Hunter in center field (*this is my interpretation, anyway). Kemp would then score on a sac fly by Blake DeWitt, and the Dodgers would win 1-0.

All of which means that in his next start, Jered will give up 15 hits in 7 innings of work, yet the Angels will win the game 13-7. Baseball just has a way of balancing this stuff out, so it's important that Jered not let this bother him going into his next start. Things could be worse, after all, he could be Jeff Weaver.

Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis Are in Love

I like my friends. Seriously, they're all wonderful people and without them I couldn't handle the high stress world of watching and writing about sports. That said, I don't need to spend all my time with them. They start to get annoying, and I'm sure I start to annoy them. Next thing you know we're breaking chairs over each other's heads because one of us saw that girl first.

Apparently Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis don't experience these kinds of things, because they are with each other all the time.
Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis - the complete Angels kiddie catching corps - not only share a job, they share a home state and a bachelor pad.

Call them Mike Mathis or Jeff Napoli. What's the difference?

The two share so much time together that Napoli recently estimated they are with each other 23 hours a day. So what about that other hour? The bathroom. Napoli thankfully confirmed that at least they don't go to the restroom together.
Okay, so they don't go to the bathroom at the same time, but nobody said anything about showering. So let's get that rumor started while we're at it.

The biggest kicker of all this? The man the two young catchers pay rent to is none other than their former teammate Adam Kennedy.

The Angels are just like family. One big, incestuous, shower sharing family.

Yankees Acquire Jose Molina

Another huge trade in baseball last night. Did I say huge? I'm sorry, I meant boring. Is it just me, or does every single trade being made this season involve a catcher? This isn't exactly the kind of late-July deals I'm looking for here.

The Yankees, however, were looking for a little backup for Jorge Posada. So they sent minor league reliever Jeff Kennard to the Angels for Jose Molina.
"He's a better hitter and he's a better defender, all due respect to Wil [Nieves]," New York general manager Brian Cashman said of Molina, "so I think he upgrades us on both ends."
Molina was completely caught off guard by the trade.
"Really it's still a shock," Molina said after going 0-for-2 in the Angels' 5-2 loss at Minnesota on Saturday night. "It's hard sometimes to take it because you have been here for so many years. But the way I have to see it is it's a new opportunity."
Molina will replace Wil Nieves who has been optioned back to Columbus. Nieves was hitting only .164 this season, with an OBP of .190. There are dead baseball players who could get on base more often than Nieves right now.

The Angels were able to part with Molina thanks to the return of Mike Napoli, and the emergence of 24-year old Jeff Mathis.

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