At first I was going to upload a run that finished in 5:04, but at that point you just have to grind for the sub 5, right?

Overall this run is pretty decent. My Top of 1 split was 10 seconds or so slower than my best, in part due to Scout Mission RNG that I have no control over and in part due to hitting a foul ball. I usually reset when that happens, but I felt like continuing this time. Then there was I think one more foul ball in the top of 2, which just shouldn't happen. In future runs, I intend for every single plate appearance on offense to take precisely one pitch- no missed pitches or foul balls period. That's especially hard for Boomerang Bro, notably, but doable.

Defense is really where the run lives or dies, though, and I got a pretty good set of PAs overall. I never threw a single ball and the majority of the fielding outs were pretty quick. The Bowser bobble wasted a few seconds but didn't kill the run and it was extremely funny, so worth it for sure. Not much else to say, though; you're reliant on luck for the CPU swinging on the earliest pitch possible and hitting it in a way that you can field, so it's mostly a numbers game, albeit one that you need to handle delicately.

Routing note: I was originally swapping Bowser for default Dry Bones on 1B to enable chem throws to first base, but realized that Red Dry Bones in particular has a Fastball Star Pitch unlike the other Bones- seeing as I don't rely on Team Stars at all for offense in this run, speeding up the strikeouts is my best way to use Team Stars, hence, Red Bones on the mound. I haven't yet run into accidental non-Bones MVP issues yet and I really like the change.

This category is really fun and I encourage folks who like playing defense especially to give it a try!