Geoff Blum faced 841 different hitters over the course of 14 major league seasons, and while he doesn’t remember them all, many come to mind easily. That was proven when he recently became the sixth player-turned-broadcaster analyst to participate in our Tough Jobs Quiz series. Did a former player maybe take a few liberties and look at a few things before we sat down to practice? He admitted a lot, but as was the case with David Cone, Mark Grant, Mark Gubicza, Jeff Montgomery, and Dan Petry – links to those pieces can be found on their player pages – right and wrong answers are considered secondary. Fun anecdotes are the main focus, and Blum has followed suit by providing plenty of them.
I started by asking Blum – the first baseman featured in this series – which pitcher stood in the batter’s box the most times.
“I was going to say Carlos Zambrano, but you gave me time to look at it and I cheated a little,” Blum replied with a laugh. “I knew it was going to be somebody in the NL Central, and we faced the Cubs a lot, so I figured it was going to be Zambrano or Ryan Dempster. I also faced Dempster a lot when he was in Florida and with Montreal, so I’m not surprised he’s the answer.”
Blum faced the right-hander Dempster 58 times — 18 more than Zambrano — going 15-for-53 with five walks. What does he remember about the current MLB Network analyst?
“He always challenged me with two-strike fastballs, and I was grateful for that,” Blum replied. “Zambrano was a different story. He seemed to get me out all the time with that bowling sinker he had. I couldn’t find him. I also couldn’t figure out why they kept playing me against him. That’s what I want to know. I probably should have asked my manager.”
Blum’s numbers against the Cubs’ longtime starter were truly awful. He went just 5-for-36 with two doubles, four walks, and nine strikeouts against Zambrano. Only Randy Johnson outboxed him more times.
You are not a FanGraphs Member
It appears that you are not yet a FanGraphs Member (or signed in). We’re not mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we’d like to point out a few good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Free Viewing! We will not mistake you for this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited topics! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles per month. Members are never cut off.
3. Dark mode and classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, the way you want.
5. One-click data export! Use our predictions and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove images from the home page! (Honestly, this doesn’t sound that good to us, but other people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. More Steam guesses! We have offer, percentage, and context neutral predictions available only to members.
8. Get the FanGraphs Walk-Off, a custom year-end review! Find out how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don’t fall prey to FOMO.
9. Weekly mailbag column, for Members only.
10. Help support FanGraphs and all of our staff! Our members give us valuable resources to improve the site and bring new features!
We hope you will consider Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize that this has been a very long marketing article, so we’ve removed all other ads from this article. We didn’t want to overdo it.
Assuming he knew this one – peep or not – I asked next which pitcher he had played the most against. Answer by Dempster and Jeff Suppan.
“I think I was like 15-for-30 off of Suppan,” Blum said, putting the exact numbers. “I had them at home, too. I saw the ball well against him. He was alternating a fastball with a slow curveball, and for whatever reason my swing was well timed with his delivery. He wasn’t a hard thrower, but he was trying to challenge me with fastballs inside.
“I remember the game in Milwaukee well, when I was in Houston,” he added. “I hit a home run off him the first time, and in my third at-bat — this was probably the fifth or sixth inning — [Brewers manager] Ned Yost went out to the mound to talk to him. They had a free guy in the bullpen, but he somehow talked himself into staying in the game. First, I hit a bomb.”
Unsurprisingly, the 53-year-old Cal Berkeley product hit him deep multiple times. He thought, “It’s got to be Suppan,” but the pitcher he threatened just gave it to him – two he hit that day in Milwaukee. Against Braden Looper, he went yard three times.
“Really,” Blum replied when he heard the right answer. “I didn’t have a lot of tanks on the guys, but I remember facing Looper. I stood at the plate, and he was throwing that front sinker. It was leaking over the plate every once in a while, and I think I got a few of them. The guys I was hitting homers with challenged me a little bit with fastballs.”
I next challenged Blum to a one-on-one match where he did worse than he did against Zambrano. What pitcher went 0-for-13 with six strikeouts?
His first guess was right about the evolution of the plates, but otherwise wrong. Although he didn’t have much success against Jeff Fassero, 3-for-12 with a walk and two strikeouts wasn’t too bad. His second stab at the answer was also gone. His numbers against Kevin Brown included two hits in 20 at-bats with three strikeouts.
“I’m not kidding,” he replied when I told him it was Edinson Volquez. “He was with Cincinnati, wasn’t he? That makes sense. I would have gotten some fights against him, being in the National League Central, but I didn’t see him hitting me that hard.”
Sticking to the negatives, I asked him which pitcher against him was 1-for-17, with a walk and three strikeouts. He replied with a laugh, and said, “It would be a couple of boys.” I let him know it was Tim Lincecum.
“That man made me change a lot of things,” Blum recalled. “He probably threw me two fastballs in my entire career against him. Yeah, a lot of changeups, and that happy delivery was always ruining my timing. He was so different. I mean, that delivery was never easy, and if there was anybody at that time that had what we call a hoppy fastball, it was probably him. I was always good for a mid-90s fastball, but he never was for me.”
Moving on to the positive, who did you compare 4-for-4 to going in pairs? His guess was in the right ballpark, but still wrong. He went 4-for-6 against Todd Ritchie, and 3-for-4 against JC Romero. I told him the answer was Pete Harnisch.
“Oh, yes,” Blum said. “I faced him early in my career. He threw me in the arms, and I forced a couple of easy hits. I think he would have been with Cincinnati then.”
My last question deviated from pitcher matchups, and was particularly challenging. Blum hit the first of his 99 home runs off Colorado’s Mike DeJean in a 14-13 Expos win at Coors Field. Who were the winners and losers of that August 1999 tournament?
“I’ll go with Anthony Telford and Dave Veres,” was his uncertain sounding guess. No. He wasn’t too far from the first of those names, though, because Telford got the money that day. Ugueth Urbina won, while Jerry Dipoto was beaten.
“Are you kidding?” Blum said when he heard the answer. “I faced Jerry Dipoto [going hitless in one at-bat]but I didn’t realize he was with the Rockies at the time. How crazy is that? It’s wild. I love Jerry too, man.”
