2021 Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 121

Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images Would you label the sub-headline for this post as misleading or just optimistic? It’s lazy sportswriting to assume that if you took out event X that the rest of the game Y would have happened exactly or even remotely the way it went. In this instance, the Reds blew a 4-0 game wide open with eight runs in the bottom of the seventh. The Cubs then scored five runs in the top of the eighth inning. Lazy sportswriting says that the five runs would have given the Cubs the lead but for that seventh inning.

Sometimes this is tricky. Sometimes we take out a single that was a close play and then erased by a double play. If that game goes on to be a one-hit shutout, then…