With this being a battle of two goal-shy teams in the bottom half of the Bundesliga, it was perhaps unsurprising that this one only had sporadic goal attempts in the opening half-hour.
The best of those undoubtedly fell to Bakayoko, as he raced through on goal and looked set to place the ball into the bottom-right corner, only for Robin Zentner to get the slightest of touches, sending it spinning onto the post and out of play.
Shortly after, Nadiem Amiri - who had scored more than the rest of his Mainz teammates combined prior to kick off - rattled the woodwork himself, but it was largely a stop-start affair thereafter.
But Bakayoko was always a threat, and he finally pounced as the interval beckoned, when a succession of passes outside the box saw the Belgian jink from wide right past two players before smashing the ball in low and hard at Zentner's near post.
Having now conceded in 14 successive top-flight games, Mainz didn’t create the initial post-half-time flurry expected from a team in their position.
The mainly attritional theme only continued after the break, though there was a decent chance for Christoph Baumgartner to wrap up the points for Leipzig just after the hour mark, when he beat two defenders and fired narrowly wide from the edge of the box.
Following another promising Leipzig chance, as Conrad Harder missed by a hair at the end of a solo run and shot, Mainz never gave up in their attempts to find an equaliser.
Nelson Weiper came close to one with seven minutes of the 90 remaining, but placed a header narrowly over the bar, but they otherwise came up short against a pacy Leipzig defence.
With no reply forthcoming, Mainz eventually fell to a defeat that spelled out a seventh Bundesliga home game without victory (D5, L2).
On the other hand, the victorious Leipzig have moved level on points with sixth place after just a second clean sheet in six away league games.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Johan Bakayoko (RB Leipzig)
