Just grabbing a sample, what the problem is comes clear: He’s grounding out. He can’t elevate the ball. Now I see your charts, and it comes clear.

It seems that Rizzo can’t hit low breaking balls now. San Diego started throwing them and his production dropped — .222/.462/.222 that series — and scouting being what it is, everybody saw that and now Rizzo is being fed nothing but low breaking balls, and he’s putting them into play. Thus his BABIP, .143 last 15, .341 the 15 games before.

I don’t have exact pitch charts for these games, but the stats I do have, plus your work, strongly suggests that it is low breaking balls that are (ahem) breaking him. Of course, throwing breaking balls high tends to be its own punishment, so assuming they’re low is pretty safe.

It’s not the whiff, though — it’s putting a bunch of weak ground balls into play, which is pretty much the worst thing for your closer to be doing. A closer that strikes out only puts himself out, a closer hitting weak grounders is begging for a double play. (2 last 15, 1 previous 30 — but that’s a pretty tiny sample.)

Finally: Rizzo’s importance to the offense at the cleanup slot seems to be clear. Cubs record last 15? 7-9. Previous 15? 13-2.

The next question is “What did Milwaukee figure out about Addison Russell that everybody is doing to him now.” 9 games since start of MIL series, .182/.229/.441 (record 4-5.) Previous 9? .359/.444/.667 (record 7-2.)