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As covered in Tuesday’s takeaways, the Cubs beat the Cardinals on Tuesday night, 2-1, behind a strong Jake Arrieta outing. 

It’s just that if this is all you heard about the game, you’d be missing out. Since we’re friends, I don’t wanna do that to you. 

Aside from Arrieta’s pitching, strong Cubs defense and, yes, good Cardinals pitching, the Cubs held on to win this game thanks to two particularly close plays. The game of inches cliche gets thrown around in every sport, and it truly applied in this one. 

First up, Matt Adams sent a Koji Uehara pitch into the night that appeared to be the game-tying shot. Only you can see Albert Almora sizing this thing up and then ...

Some of the replays from the side showed that it was possible the ball would have fallen inches short of a home run, but maybe it would’ve hit the top of the wall and gone over. So even if we can’t be 100 percent sure it was a game-saving catch, this one came down to inches. 

And, really, say Adams doubles or even triples here: It’s still possible Almora saved the game. 

By the way, MLB.com’s Statcast measured the exit velocity the launch angle and determined that a ball struck like that is almost always a home run: 

The game would need saving again for the Cubs in the bottom of the ninth. With a runner on, the game ended on this Javier Baez to Anthony Rizzo throw that initially was ruled to have gotten Kolten Wong at first base. 

As you can see, the review was upheld and the Cubs were victorious. That was unbelievably close, too. 

There’s bound to be a lot of seeing what one wants to see on that. It’s as close as a play can possibly be. Given that, it isn’t surprising that the call on the field stood. My guess is had Wong been called safe, that would’ve remained the call as well. That’s the system. 

That’s also a lot of drama for the second game of the season, coming on the heels of a drama-filled Sunday night. The playoffs don’t start for six months. Buckle in, people. Our awesome marathon of a season is here.