OK, managed to get a proper Baby Mario IL finished this time. A first-inning mercy match against Mario followed by a first-try Jr. is about as fast as this category can go. It was really annoying scoring 10 runs over and over again just to give Mario the opportunity to Fireball swing and miss the Magikoopas or not even Fireball swing at all, but ultimately also good practice for the game in general and not the worst thing in the world.

The top of the first against Mario in this run was solid. My fastest time for that segment so far is 3:29, so missing that by only seventeen seconds isn't bad at all in my opinion. As for the bottom of the first, things could have gone a wee bit faster in the execution but Booted Ball double play into 1 Strikeout is the optimal order of events and I nailed it. I was actually nervous- if I missed the strikeout against Yellow Pianta there, my run only had a 50% chance to live. Thankfully I was able to go into Jr. worry free.

The Jr. match itself was clean but perhaps not as aggressive as it could have been. It's just really hard to will yourself to pitch to contact when you still haven't gotten a clean run on the leaderboards yet. The Killer Jr. swing had me on edge for a moment, but thankfully the Magikoopas know exactly how to babysit that little runt and he went down fairly easily. Of course, I always prefer a Jr. encounter where I get to bat to one where I get to hit, but that's not exactly something you can reset for unless you schedule Jr. before Mario, which is... well, it's certainly an option. Not one I anticipate taking soon, though.

I will likely rest on this run until it is beaten. There are more fun characters waiting for me at the moment.