Borussia Dortmund bounced straight back from their first defeat of the season by picking up all three points with a 2-0 win at Mainz on Friday night.
Thomas Tuchel celebrated a winning return to his former club with goals from Marco Reus and Henrikh Mkhitaryan earning the Westphalians all three points and taking them back to within four of Bayern Munich at the top, ahead of the Bavarians' trip to Bremen on Saturday.
Reus also had a penalty saved as Dortmund wasted chances to make it a more comfortable win at the Coface Arena.
Reus netted his first goal since August as a loose ball out of defence by Niko Bungert was pounced upon by Mkhitaryan, and he and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left Reus with just Loris Karius to beat.
They could not expect too many favours from Mainz, though, and Martin Schmidt's men came close to levelling soon after when Pablo De Blasis set up Yunus Malli, who pulled his shot across the face of goal and wide of the far post.
Some more slack defending was almost punished by Mkhitaryan before the hosts went close to levelling again with a Jairo Samperio free-kick tipped onto the crossbar by Roman Burki.
Right at the start of the second half, Danny Latza slid in from and took the ball away from Aubameyang right on the edge of the area.
The referee judged not only that the Mainz defender had fouled the Gabon international, but that the contact had been within the box, and pointed to the spot.
Justice was perhaps done when Karius made his sixth save from the last eight penalties he has faced to deny Reus and Dortmund a second.
Shinji Kagawa lifted a diagonal shot past Karius, but also past the far post as Dortmund once again passed on a chance to increase their lead and Aubameyang missed a further two gilt-edged chances as the clock ticked down.
Mainz did not manage to punish them, however, and ended up shooting themselves in the foot for a second time with Daniel Brosinski the culprit this time, passing the ball to Aubameyang who selflessly teed up Mkhitaryan to skip past Karius and make it two.
All that was missing was a goal from Aubameyang, who failed to find the back of the net for the first time in the Bundesliga this season.