The hype, passion, and expectations for the Cubs in the playoffs was already off the charts. This year is abnormal. The Cubs aren’t counting down the days until next year like usual, but instead are counting the days until November baseball. For every World Series run, you need a big bang in the early stages of the playoffs to give your team a boost of momentum on the roadway to the Fall Classic. The Cubs–who haven’t raised the  Commissioner’s Trophy in well over 100 years–got the big bang they wanted last night to set their eyes on the ultimate prize.

If you are a fan of defense and pitching, Friday night’s game was the ideal contest. The San Francisco Giants, coming off an exhilarating 9th inning Wild Card win in New York, traveled to Chicago with spirits full of momentum. The pitching matchup for game one featured two of the best pitchers that Major League Baseball has to offer, Johnny Cueto and Jon Lester.

Over the first three innings of the ball game, Johnny Cueto was throwing a perfect game along with some brilliant defensive stops behind him, including Gorkys Hernandez robbing David Ross of extra bases in the third. Also inside those first three innings where some stellar plays by the Cubs’ catcher David Ross (@Grandpa Rossy) who threw out Brandon Belt at second in the 1st and then in the third picked off Conor Gillaspie at first in a designed trick play. Throughout the game, scoring chances for both teams were very limited. The Giants only had three men in scoring position in the game’s entirety while the Cubs only had one, when Kris Bryant reached third after a double only to be stranded after a Rizzo groundout.

As the game continued a noticeable trend paced the ball game. Rarely in an inning did you see more than one base runner for either team. The game looked like it could go on in a scoreless tie as long as the two aces stayed on the bump, but something unordinary shook that trend in the bottom of the 8th inning with one out and a 3-2 count on Javier Baez.

With the wind blowing hard into the right field corner, Baez received a pitch right down the middle that he cranked high and deep into left field. Even though the ball landed in the basket just barely over the left field fence, you could tell right when it left the bat that it was a no doubter. Chicago was rocking. In the top of the ninth, the Cubs brought in one of the best closers of in the game today, Aroldis Chapman, to finish up the Giants for good. There was a brief moment of panic in the final frame when Buster Posey, starting catcher for the San Francisco Giants, doubled off the wall in left center to get into scoring position with two outs. But in the end Chapman had no problem retiring the last batter for the Giants, Hunter Pence. The Cubs took a thrilling game one by the slimmest of margins, winning by the final score of 1-0.

Not often are MLB games decided by one swing of the bat, which reminds me how resilient the two teams are squaring off in this serioes The rest of this series is going to be a dogfight and a battle all the way to the finish line. 

Tomorrow’s pitching matchup will feature Jeff Samardzija, a former Chicago Cub vs. Kyle Hendricks, who held the lowest ERA of any pitcher during the 2016 regular season.

You can catch the game on MLB Network tomorrow at 7:00PM and be sure to check in with The Forest Scout for live-tweeting. The following morning of a Cubs postseason game, check in here to get the complete post-game summary of the Cubs and their quest to become MLB champions.