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Jane Goodall’s Nightmare

Birdo’s Magik Mushrooms

Only one of these teams keeps its zero in the loss column past this weekend, and that is the whole story before a pitch is thrown. Birdo's Magik Mushrooms sit atop the Based Ballers Season 2 standings at 2-0, a single game separating them from nothing at all, because Jane Goodall's Nightmare sit right beneath them at the same 2-0. When the two clubs meet at Birdo's yard, the standings will do something they have refused to do so far this season — they will crack. One of these perfect records is about to take its first blemish. The man in the home dugout does not need reminding what a clean sheet is worth. Zeph carried TJD to a 15-0 sweep of the Season 1 playoffs, and his fingerprints are all over the league record book: the biggest blowout on file at plus-nineteen, the highest-scoring half-inning at a dozen runs. His Magik Mushrooms have looked every bit that pedigree this year. They hung a five-spot in the first inning on Luigi's Had Enough at Bowser Castle before that club could find its feet, and they left the Weed Sox staring at another blank line after Magikoopa spun a three-inning gem at Wario Palace. When Zeph's teams get an early lead, the rest of the afternoon tends to be accounting. But Granbel arrives with the most frightening single note in the young season: pitching that simply does not let anyone breathe. Diddy Kong has blanked the Weed Sox at Mario Stadium and buried Da Plumber Syndicate under sixteen strikeouts in the Donkey Kong Jungle humidity. Jane Goodall's Nightmare have been perfect not by outslugging the field but by refusing to give runs back. That is a different kind of 2-0 than Zeph's, and it is the more interesting collision because of it. So here is the question the game answers: what happens when a lineup that scores in avalanches runs into an arm that has been making avalanches impossible? Zeph's club wants the first inning; if the Mushrooms grab the early crooked number the way they did against Luigi's Had Enough, Granbel's whole model gets tested from behind. If Diddy Kong's brand of afternoon travels — and it has traveled everywhere so far — the champion's bats face something they have not yet had to solve. Watch the top of the order early. Watch whether Birdo's home ground turns into the launching pad it has been for the Mushrooms, or whether Granbel's staff drags the whole thing into the low-scoring grind where his Nightmare live. Two perfect teams, one board, no more room for both. Blooper's Final Ink: somebody's zero moves this weekend. I would not want to be the one holding the bat when Diddy Kong is feeling it, and I would not want to be the one on the mound when Zeph gets his first-inning lead. Pick your poison. — Inky the Blooper