Baseball Trivia: Does hitting every batter in the order send a message?

Who said this regarding his strategy to hit the entire line-up of the Cincinnati Reds to start the game?

This pitcher then proceeding to hit Rose, Morgan and Driessan and then Tony Perez managed to dive out of the way of all four pitches thrown at various parts of his body and Bench managed to get to 2-0 before [ the coach ] came out to ask him what the hell was going on. He responded "looks like I got a case of Blass-itis" as it was the year after Steve Blass had done an early Mark Wohlers and gone from winning 20 + the Seventh game of the world series to being out of baseball

 

I guess y'all need a hint...eh?

The hint requires you to scroll over the following hidden text

<font color="f7f7f7">this guy was the answer to my last Baseball Trivia question, as well. Obviously, I love this guy!</font>

Come on DoD...what's the answer?....remember the rapid-fire trivia thread with my "yeah babe" obnoxiousness? This is your Saturday challenge.