Jorf Porsson's Week 7 Power Rankings: The Hounds Are Real, the Outlaws Are Complicated, and Myc Witty Is Transcendent

By Jorf Porsson, CCW Insider, Sultan of Sources, Survivor of 95 Degree Heat, Still Processing the Ligers' 5th Inning

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I filed my heat death power rankings last week predicting that Alex Gurtcheff, Dustin Laugel, and Myc Witty were the most likely players to perish in triple-digit heat index conditions. I want to update that report. Gurtcheff went 5-for-10 with 3 home runs and 4 RBI and was named Hitter of the Week. Witty threw 4.1 innings of shutout ball with 12 strikeouts and was named Pitcher of the Week. Laugel plated the only run in a 1-0 game. The heat, it turns out, has no power over these men. My sources were wrong. I am issuing a correction. This is the only correction I have ever issued.

What a week it was. The Hounds swept the Gold Socks. The 8 Balls and Moonshots split in a pair of games that couldn't have been more different from each other. The Ligers and Outlaws split in a fashion that included one of the most catastrophic single-inning collapses in CCW history. And Holden Palmer lost a game for the first time, which I mention not to pile on, but because it felt like the kind of event that warranted a note in the historical record.
Here are the Week 7 Power Rankings. The league, I am pleased to report, has gotten genuinely interesting.

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1. Short Shorts — 8-2, +37 (Previously: 1st — HOLDS)

The Short Shorts did not play this week. They remain 8-2. They remain +37 in run differential, which is still 6 runs better than the next team. They still have the best ERA in the league at 1.55, the best team OPS at 1.463, and a pitching staff fronted by Brayden Scott (0.50 ERA, 8 IP, 15 Ks, zero home runs allowed) and Dustin Dowden (0.67 ERA, 12 IP, 21 Ks) that has been the single most dominant staff in CCW this season.

An idle week does not move them from first. Nothing that happened this week moves them from first. What it does do is allow the field to close ground slightly in the win column — which it did — and create a genuine conversation about whether the teams below them are getting dangerous enough to threaten a title run. The Short Shorts will need to answer that question themselves when they take the field again. The answer, based on seven weeks of evidence, will probably involve Brayden Scott striking out ten hitters and Brendan Dudas homering twice.
I have nothing negative to say about this team. I have been trying for seven weeks.

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2. Hounds Wiffle Club — 7-4, -28 (Previously: 3rd — UP 1)

The Hounds are 7-4. The Hounds have the second-most wins in the league. The Hounds swept the Gold Socks this week, the same Gold Socks team that came into the season with legitimate title aspirations, and they did it behind a performance from Myc Witty that I am now formally entering into my personal hall of records alongside other things I did not think were real until I saw them.

Game 1 featured the Young brother matchup the league had been building toward — Byron versus Connor, younger against older, Hound versus Sock. Byron won. He gave up 3 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks, struck out 5, and kept his team in it until Witty came on in relief with the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate in the last inning — and punched out the lone batter he faced. He then went 3-for-5 at the plate with two home runs, which is the kind of multi-contribution performance that wins MVP awards. Coby Taylor hit a solo shot in his season debut. Unversaw homered. Byron Young homered. This team suddenly has depth at the plate in ways that earlier results masked.

Game 2 was Witty at his absolute apex. One hit. Eleven strikeouts. Four innings. Zero runs. The one hit was a Connor Young single. Coby Taylor's 2-RBI single provided the margin. Austin Alles pitched well enough most nights to win — 2 runs on 4 hits — and stared down a shutout on the other side for his troubles.

Witty's season line now reads: 13.1 IP, 0.30 ERA, 35 strikeouts, 0.22 WHIP. I have been covering this league since its early days. I have not seen a pitching season like this. The -28 run differential is the product of games played without him on the mound. It does not capture what this team is when he pitches. Byron Young at 2.18 ERA in 14.2 innings is a legitimate number two arm. The Hounds are real, they are surging, and they now sit in second place.

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3. Moonshots — 6-4, +31 (Previously: 2nd — DOWN 1)

The Moonshots split the week with the 8 Balls and drop one spot — not because anything is broken, but because the Hounds earned their place above them with a full sweep while the Moonshots took a gut-punch 1-0 loss in Game 1 that deserves honest examination.

Will Smithey was excellent. One run on 3 hits, 7 strikeouts. He did what he needed to do. The Moonshots managed two baserunners total — a Hopkins double and a Buchman single. Dustin Laugel hit an RBI single in the second inning that gave Reid Werner all the support he would need, and Werner — who I have been telling you about since before it was fashionable — threw 5 innings of shutout ball with 9 strikeouts and only 2 hits allowed. The 8 Balls won 1-0 because Werner was Werner and the Moonshots couldn't string anything together offensively.

Game 2 was the correction. Will Smithey went 3-for-5 with 3 home runs and 6 RBI, which is the most dominant individual offensive performance by any player in any game this season. Hart, Hopkins, and Buchman all added home runs. Buchman himself pitched 3 innings, allowing 3 runs with 6 strikeouts, which was enough with that offense behind him. The Moonshots won 9-3 and restored equilibrium.

The full season picture remains excellent: 6-4, +31 run differential (now the best in the league among teams with more than 8 games played), a pitching staff ERA of 1.98 with only 6 home runs allowed in 32.1 innings, and Smithey (.485 AVG, 7 HR, 1.601 OPS) taking his usual seat as a legitimate MVP candidate. Hart at .385 with 8 HR, Hopkins at .426 with 7 HR — this is a deep, dangerous lineup. The Moonshots remain a title contender in every meaningful sense.

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4. Outlaws — 6-8, +13 (Previously: 5th — UP 1)

My sources described the Outlaws' week as "an emotional experience." I have reviewed the box scores and I am inclined to agree with that characterization.

Game 1 against the Ligers was clean, convincing, and exactly what an Outlaws win is supposed to look like. Mitch Buis held the Ligers to 2 hits, 1 walk, and 1 run while striking out 7. He then handed the ball to the offense, and Gurtch went 3-for-5 with a homer, Luker went 3-for-5 with a homer, and Garavalia went 2-for-3 with a homer. They won 9-1. Holden Palmer allowed 7 runs on 7 hits through 3 innings — his first real rough outing of the season — and took his first loss of the year. Order appeared to be restored.

Game 2 is where things went sideways in a way that I will be thinking about for weeks. The Outlaws led 8-2 entering the bottom of the fifth inning. They needed three outs. What they got instead was a combination of walks, defensive miscues, and home runs from the Ligers that resulted in 8 runs scored — an 8-run fifth inning, the kind of number that reads like a typo until you check it twice and find out it is not. Connor Smith hit the walk-off home run. Holden Palmer — who came back in after being strategically held back in Game 1 — struck out 5 in the final 2 innings to keep the deficit at 8 and give his team the chance to come back. He made the most of it.

Gurtcheff's final line in that game — 10 runs allowed on 10 hits — does not reflect the 4 innings of 2-run ball he threw before the implosion. He also homered twice. Luker had a homer and a triple. Buis, Garavalia, and rookie Max Lowry each went yard. The Outlaws scored 8 runs in a game they lost 10-8. This team has the most runs scored in the league by a country mile — 98 — and the most at-bats, the most hits, the most home runs. They are also 6-8. The disconnect between their offensive production and their record is the defining statistical paradox of the CCW season.

The pitching numbers tell the story that explains the paradox. A 5.42 ERA. 24 walks in 48.2 innings. 26 home runs allowed — the most in the league. Gurtcheff at 6.09 ERA in 21.2 innings. Outside of Buis (1.23 ERA, 13 IP, 24 Ks) the mound is a genuine liability, and the pitching limit rules mean the right arms face the right opponents on a schedule the rest of the league can game plan around.

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5. Ligers — 5-6, -13 (Previously: 4th — DOWN 1)

The Ligers drop one spot despite splitting the week — and I want to be precise about why, because it is not a knock on their talent. The Outlaws earned their fourth spot back with a win, and the Ligers' season record (5-6) and run differential (-13) reflect a team that has been capable of brilliance and vulnerable to volatility in roughly equal measure.

The brilliance is Holden Palmer, who even in a loss and his first rough outing of the season finished with a line (20 IP, 1.00 ERA, 46 Ks) that is so absurd it barely processes as real. Forty-six strikeouts. In twenty innings. His 1.30 WHIP and 46 Ks would lead almost every statistical category on almost every pitching staff in this league. He was less sharp this week — 7 runs on 7 hits through 3 before being pulled — which is a perfectly human thing to happen to a human pitcher, and he came back to close the Outlaws in Game 2 with five strikeouts in two innings. The arm is real and it is extraordinary.

The volatility showed itself in two directions this week: the Ligers were down bad early in Game 1 when Karwoski allowed 8 runs on 9 hits in two innings, then staged one of the most improbable comebacks of the season in Game 2. Connor Smith went 3-for-6 with two home runs including the walk-off. Jones collected 3 hits and 2 RBI and continues to be a dangerous two-way contributor (.380, 7 HR). Aidan Palmer, the most complete player on this roster, sits at .467 with 9 HR and a 1.533 OPS and is quietly having one of the best offensive seasons in the league.

The Ligers have the pitching, when Holden is right, to beat anyone. They don't yet have the lineup depth or defensive consistency to win ugly. That's the ceiling and the floor in one sentence.

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6. Gold Socks — 4-8, -20 (Previously: 6th — HOLDS)

I have been writing about Austin Alles's pitching troubles since Week 1, and I want to give him credit before I continue: his outing in Game 2 against the Hounds — 2 runs on 4 hits — was the most composed pitching performance he's had all season, and he did it staring down Myc Witty's shutout on the other side. The losses are not all on him. Some nights you pitch well and lose 2-0. That happened to him this week.

The fuller picture, though, is still a 6.40 ERA in 15 innings, 11 home runs allowed, and a staff ERA of 5.23 that is second-worst in the league. Rudy Lyon's 1.60 ERA in 5 innings of work is an encouraging development, and his Game 1 start last week against the Outlaws was genuine. If Lyon is a real option every week, the Gold Socks have another arm. 

The offense is there. Alles at .531 with 8 HR and a 1.447 OPS leads the team and is having an excellent offensive season. Lyon at .391 with 7 HR, Tristan Dudas at .385, and even Connor Young at .293 with 3 HR and the walk-off grand slam in his personal highlight package. The Gold Socks can score. At 4-8, they now need to figure out how to prevent runs as often as they create them.

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7. 8 Balls — 3-7, -20 (Previously: 7th — HOLDS)

The 8 Balls beat the Moonshots 1-0 in one of the best-pitched games of the season, then lost 9-3 in a game where the bottom of their order went absolutely haywire — Alec Berninger with 2 homers, Keegan Caughey going 2-for-2 — while Swingler struggled on the mound. That is the 8 Balls in miniature: flashes of genuine competitiveness surrounded by a record that doesn't reflect the flashes.

Reid Werner is the story of this team and has been for a month. His season pitching line: 9 innings, 0.00 ERA, 22 strikeouts, 0.56 WHIP. He has not allowed a single earned run. He is also batting .326 with 3 HR, which makes him the team's most reliable two-way contributor. If Kylo Rain is healthy and available every week, the 8 Balls have a genuine ace. The problem is that "healthy and available every week" has not been a given, and the team has gone stretches carrying Laugel and Swingler as the primary options — and while Laugel leads the entire league in RBI at 15, his 6.21 ERA in 9.2 innings limits his mound value.

At 3-7, the 8 Balls' season is functionally in the balance. There's enough individual talent here to win games. The record needs to start reflecting it.

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— Jorf Porsson has survived Week 7. His sources survived as well. The only casualty was the Outlaws' lead in the bottom of the fifth, and no one who was there will forget it. Hydrate, twin.


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Jorf Porsson's Power Rankings: Who Is Most Likely to Perish on Wednesday

By Jorf Porsson, CCW Insider, Sultan of Sources, Now Doubling as a Heat Safety Correspondent Against His Will

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We have officially run out of rain. The skies, having exhausted their considerable arsenal against this league — the wind, the cold, the tornado watches, the two feet of projected rainfall — have apparently consulted with a different department. Wednesday's forecast: 94 degrees, a heat index flirting with 105, humidity that my sources describe only as "biblical."

The weather is no longer trying to cancel CCW. The weather is now trying to end it from the inside, one dehydrated wiffle ball player at a time.

I have done the research. I have consulted my sources, several of whom are licensed in absolutely nothing relevant to this topic. Here are my Power Rankings for who is most likely to perish on the Dirtyard this Wednesday. This is satire. No one is going to die. Please drink water anyway.

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1. Myc Witty

The math here is not complicated, but it is alarming. Witty's muscle mass requires a caloric and hydration intake that most CCW players would need a small support staff to maintain under normal conditions. At 94 degrees with a 105 heat index, his body will be losing fluid output at a rate that his intake simply cannot match — he is, biologically speaking, an extremely efficient machine that is about to be asked to run on fumes in a convection oven.

This is a man who threw a complete game with 13 strikeouts and has a 0.44 ERA on the season. None of that will matter if his hydration deficit catches up to his pitch count in the fourth inning. I am not saying Myc Witty is going down on Wednesday. I am saying my sources have requested he be seated near an air conditioner between innings, just in case.

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2. Alex "Swamp Donkey" Gurtcheff

Look, the man has a documented history here. There was already one incident this season — a real, reported overheating and dehydration episode — and now we are sending him back into the exact conditions that caused it the first time, except worse. This is not me being dramatic. This is me reading the medical precedent and doing simple arithmetic.

Gurtch is a big man playing a physically demanding position in conditions that the heat index is calling "approaching triple digits," which is a phrase that should not exist in the same sentence as recreational sports. He is must-watch theater on Wednesday for two reasons: his bat, which is among the best in the league, and his survival, which is suddenly very much in question. I have been told there will be ice towels. I have been told this might not be enough.

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3. Dustin "The Lush" Laugel

This is a different kind of dehydration risk, and frankly, a self-inflicted one. While his teammates will be losing fluids to sweat, my sources project that Laugel will be losing fluids to a steady, determined consumption of Busch Light that will, if history is any indication, continue regardless of the heat index, the humidity, or basic medical advice.

The dehydrating effects of alcohol combined with 94-degree heat and triple-digit heat index conditions are not a combination I would recommend to anyone, and it is certainly not a combination I am recommending to Dustin Laugel, who will not be reading this article, because he will be busy contributing to the problem in real time. He is also hitting .417 with 6 home runs, which means his bat will likely outlast his liver on Wednesday, and that is a sentence I never thought I would write professionally.

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4. Rudy Lyon

Rudy Lyon has, at various points this season, been afflicted by ailments that my sources have described as "numerous" and "ongoing" and, on one occasion, "upsetting enough that we stopped asking." Adding heat stroke to that list does not feel like a stretch. It feels like an inevitability that the schedule-makers should have seen coming.

This is a man who debuted on the mound this season and immediately picked up a win, who is hitting .385 with 5 home runs, and who appears to be held together by a combination of willpower and whatever his trainer is doing behind the scenes. Triple-digit heat index conditions are not on that trainer's list of things they can fix. I am genuinely concerned, and I say that as someone who is rarely genuinely concerned about anything that isn't precipitation.

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5. Dalsen Murdock (a.k.a. Todd Mudrock)

I am including Murdock not because of any specific physical vulnerability, but because my sources inform me that his alter ego, Todd Mudrock, has never once been photographed in appropriate hydration gear, and a man who recently allowed four home runs in a single inning of relief work is not a man I trust to make sound decisions under heat-index duress. If Todd Mudrock shows up Wednesday in full character and refuses to acknowledge the existence of a water cooler on principle, that is a problem entirely of his own making, and I will report on it accordingly.

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A closing note from Jorf: Please drink water. Please seek shade. Please do not let Dustin Laugel's hydration strategy become a league-wide trend. The rain quit on this league weeks ago. Let's not let the sun finish the job.

— Jorf Porsson will be reporting from a shaded press box on Wednesday, with a cooler, and he is not ashamed of either fact.


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By Jorf Porsson, CCW Insider, Sultan of Sources, Patron Saint of the Jack Off, Documented Survivor of This League's Weather Pattern

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I have watched this league for six weeks now. I have watched it rain on Wednesdays, watched it not rain on Thursdays, watched grand slams and Jack Offs and a man throw three consecutive complete game shutouts like it was a perfectly reasonable thing for a human arm to do. I thought I had seen the shape of this season. I had not. Week 6 reshaped it.

The Short Shorts went 2-0, beat the Outlaws by two touchdowns worth of runs, and have now opened a gap atop these rankings that is no longer a gap — it is a chasm with a moat around it. The Hounds and Moonshots played the two best one-run games of the season against each other, splitting the series in a way that tells you everything about how tight that rivalry has become. The Ligers continue to roll behind a pitcher who I am now formally required to discuss using superlatives I previously reserved for emergencies. And the Outlaws — my goodness, the Outlaws — are running out of pitchers, running out of runway, and running out of patience with their own season.

Here is the new hierarchy. It is, in some places, very settled. In others, it is chaos dressed up as a standings table.

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1. Short Shorts — 8-2, +37 (Previously: 1st — HOLDS)

There is not a debate here anymore. The Short Shorts beat the Outlaws 14-0 and the Gold Socks 4-1 in the same week, and the +37 run differential is now thirteen runs better than the next-closest team. I want to make sure that number lands: this team has outscored its opponents by an average of nearly four runs per game across ten games. That is not a hot streak. That is a separation event.

Let's talk about the 14-0 game, because it requires context the Outlaws would want on the record. Per CCW's regular-season pitching limits — one start or five innings max per pitcher against a given opponent — the Outlaws had already used Buis and Gurtcheff against the Short Shorts this season, and their next arm in line, Garavalia, was committed to the Gold Socks game later that night. That left Jay Wilsey, a player who, in his own words relayed through my sources, is not someone who should be absorbing meaningful innings on a mound. He took 14 runs on 13 hits through three innings while Dustin Dowden no-hit—well, one-hit—the Outlaws into oblivion on the other side, striking out 6 in 3 innings. Brendan Dudas (3-for-5, HR), Brayden Scott (2-for-4, 2 HR), and Jared Gray (4-for-6, 2 HR) turned the rest of the game into batting practice.

Game 2 against the Gold Socks was the more meaningful data point, honestly — a legitimate 4-1 win against a real opponent, with Brayden Scott pitching (4 innings, 1 run, 10 Ks) and hitting (2-for-3, solo HR) his way to a complete performance, with Dudas and Gray both adding homers.

The team numbers are now absurd in scope: .455 team average, 1.463 team OPS, 30 home runs, a team ERA of 1.55. Individually: Yellow Slugger level production from Brendan Dudas (.533, 10 HR, 1.746 OPS), Brayden Scott (.607, 8 HR, 2.176 OPS — the single best OPS of any qualified hitter in the league), Jared Gray quietly at .400 with 4 HR, and Dustin Dowden's pitching line (12 IP, 0.67 ERA, 21 Ks) is some of the best work by anyone this season. This team has no real weakness right now. None.

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2. Moonshots — 5-3, +26 (Previously: 2nd — HOLDS)

The series with the Hounds was the best wiffle ball this league has produced all season, and the Moonshots came away with the split — which, given the stakes and the quality of competition, is a perfectly defensible result that keeps them comfortably in second.

Game 1: down 6-4 entering the 4th, the Moonshots scored 3 to take the lead , then made the call that defines a good coaching staff — bringing in ace Will Smithey for a single inning of relief to close it out, rather than riding it out with a tiring Kent Nims. Smithey threw a perfect inning. Game, set, series tied at the midpoint. Nims's final line — 6 runs on 6 hits through 3 — wasn't his sharpest, but the offense and the bullpen move covered for him. Thomas Hopkins went 3-for-4 with two home runs, and Alec Buchman added a 3-for-4 day with a homer and a triple.

Game 2 belonged to the Hounds, and specifically to two men: Myc Witty, who held the Moonshots to a single hit — a Will Smithey solo home run, which my sources confirm is only the second time in Witty's CCW career he's been taken deep — and Mitch Unversaw, who continued an absurd individual stretch at the plate. Buchman pitched well enough to win on almost any other night: 2 runs on 5 hits through 4, 6 Ks. It simply wasn't enough against a historically dominant Witty start.

The Moonshots remain elite. Josh Hart (.394, 7 HR, 1.490 OPS), Hopkins (.447, 7 HR, 1.409 OPS), Smithey (.542, 4 HR, 1.565 OPS) — this offense is deep and dangerous everywhere. The pitching staff ERA (1.89) is still second-best in the league. They are not the Short Shorts right now. They are the clear second-best team in CCW.

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3. Hounds Wiffle Club — 5-4, -34 (Previously: 3rd — HOLDS)

The run differential remains the most misleading -34 in organized sports. The Hounds split the week's marquee series with the league's second-best team, and the box scores from both games tell a story of a team that belongs firmly in the league's upper tier, regardless of what the cumulative numbers from March suggest.

I need everyone to sit with what Mitch Unversaw did in Game 1: three home runs. Three. In a losing effort. The Hounds found a way to lose a game in which one of their hitters went deep three times, which is either a remarkable failure of complementary offense or a remarkable achievement by Unversaw — I am inclined to call it the latter, because hitting three home runs in a game is not something that happens by accident, and his teammates simply ran into a buzzsaw on the other side of the ledger.

Then Game 2 happened, and Myc Witty reminded the league why his name appears in this column more than any other player not wearing a Short Shorts uniform. Four innings, one hit, one run, ten strikeouts — and the one hit was a Will Smithey solo shot that represents a genuine historical footnote in Witty's career given how rarely he's been taken deep. Unversaw followed his three-homer game with a 2-for-4, RBI double effort, and rookie Brayden Coon, in his first week of real action, went 2-for-4. This is a deep, dangerous, improving roster.

Witty's season pitching line now reads: 9 IP, 0.44 ERA, 23 Ks, 0.22 WHIP. Those are not real numbers. Those are typos that happen to be true. DLewy continues to be a two-way enigma — 19 ER allowed in 10 innings on the mound, but he's hitting .452 with 4 HR and is a legitimate offensive weapon when he's not pitching. The blowout losses from March are baked into that run differential forever. They are also increasingly irrelevant to what this team actually is right now.

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4. Ligers — 4-5, -7 (Previously: 5th — UP 1)

Holden Palmer threw his third consecutive complete game shutout this week. Let me say that again, slower, because I want it to register the way it deserves to: his third consecutive complete game shutout. Five innings, four hits, zero runs, eight strikeouts against the 8 Balls. His season totals are now 15 innings pitched, zero earned runs, 34 strikeouts, a 0.87 WHIP. I have run out of ways to describe this performance that don't sound like hyperbole, so I am simply going to report the stat line and let you sit with it the way I have had to.

The Ligers split the week — a 1-0 nailbiter against Reid Werner, behind Aidan Palmer's pitching (6.2 innings, 1 run, 13 Ks on the season), then a 4-0 shutout of the 8 Balls behind Holden. Aidan's home run off a fast pitch in the 4th of Game 2 put the result out of reach, and Connor Smith's solo shot off a slow pitch opportunity got things started. This roster, when both Palmers are clicking, is one of the most dangerous twin-engine operations in the league.

The Ligers are now 4-5, have climbed back to a respectable -7 run differential, and have real positive momentum heading into the second half. Aidan Palmer remains a legitimate MVP candidate at .467 with 9 HR and a 1.533 OPS, and Holden Palmer's emergence as a Pitcher of the Year frontrunner is one of the genuine stories of this CCW season. DJ continues to hit at .350 with 6 HR. This team has quietly built the look of a second-half problem for everyone above them.

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5. Outlaws — 5-7, +7 (Previously: 4th — DOWN 1)

I do not know what else to say about the Outlaws that I haven't already said with increasing levels of concern over the last two columns. They lost both games this week, are now 5-7, and have fallen to a +7 run differential that, two months ago, would have seemed unthinkable for a team with this much individual talent.

The pitching limit rule bit them hard this week. Having already used Buis and Gurtcheff against the Short Shorts, the bullpen bind forced Jay Wilsey into the rotation against the league's best team, and the results were what you'd expect from a player who, by his own admission relayed through my sources, isn't built for that workload — 14 runs allowed on 13 hits in three innings. Against the Gold Socks, Ian Garavalia fell victim to the long ball, surrendering 4 runs on 5 hits with 6 Ks, including two homers and three RBI off the bat of Austin Alles. Rudy Lyon, in his pitching debut for the Gold Socks, shut the Outlaws down well enough to win — allowing just the one mistake, a 2-run Gurtcheff homer in the first.

Here is the diagnosis that's been building for weeks: Gurtcheff and Luker remain two of the best hitters in this entire league — Gurtch is at .566 with 14 HR and a 1.943 OPS, Luker is at .536 with 8 HR and a 1.541 OPS, both elite by any measure — but the supporting cast went a combined 3-for-12 with three singles in the Gold Socks loss. That is the exact problem I flagged last week, and it has not improved. When Gurtch or Luker doesn't go deep, this offense doesn't have a second gear.

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6. Gold Socks — 4-6, -14 (Previously: 6th — HOLDS)

A 1-4 week in run total but a split in the win column — the Gold Socks fell to the Short Shorts but beat the Outlaws, and the story of both games is the same one that's followed this team all season: explosive, talented hitting paired with a pitching staff that cannot consistently find the strike zone.

Austin Alles continues to be the league's most fascinating two-way contradiction. Against the Short Shorts, he allowed 4 runs on 5 hits through 3 innings — not his worst outing, genuinely respectable — but my sources (and the box score) confirm the same bug that's bitten him repeatedly: opposing hitters doing damage in slow-pitch situations after he's lost the strike zone first. He then turned around against the Outlaws and went 2-for-3 with two homers and three RBI, a stat line that single-handedly outscored most of his own pitching outings. Rudy Lyon picked up his first win of the season on the mound — 5 innings, 2 runs, 9 Ks — a genuinely encouraging step for a pitching staff that desperately needs depth.

The offensive numbers remain top-tier across the board: Alles at .571 with 8 HR, Lyon at .385 with 5 HR, Tristan Dudas at .385 with 3 HR. The team's 23 home runs are tied for the league lead. But the pitching staff ERA of 5.42 is the worst in the league, and until that changes, the Gold Socks will keep losing games they have the bats to win.

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7. 8 Balls — 2-6, -15 (Previously: 7th — HOLDS)

The 8 Balls' lone win of the week was a legitimate, well-earned 1-0 nailbiter over the Ligers — and it deserves real credit before I get to the rest of the week's results. Reid Werner made his season pitching debut and delivered a vintage performance: five innings, zero runs, only three hits allowed, thirteen strikeouts. That is the best pitching line by any 8 Balls arm all season, and it could not have come at a better time for a team that needed exactly this. Justin Swingler provided the game's only run with a solo shot off a slow-pitch opportunity — his lone hit of the game, making the most of it.

Game 2 was a much tougher outing — the Holden Palmer buzzsaw, his third straight shutout, left the 8 Balls without much room to operate. Dustin Laugel's final line (4 runs on 6 hits through 4, 5 Ks) actually undersells how well he pitched; two long balls did the damage, and without those two specific swings, this would have been his best start of the season by results. Werner added a 2-for-5 day at the plate to cap a complete individual week.

The bigger picture numbers remain rough — 2-6, -15 run differential, the league's worst team ERA outside Gold Socks territory. But Laugel continues to be one of the most productive hitters in the entire league relative to expectation (.417, 6 HR, 14 RBI — tied for the league lead in RBI), and Werner's status as a two-way weapon gives this roster a second life if he can stay available on the mound. The floor for this team is higher than the record suggests.

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— Jorf Porsson has filed this report on time, in good weather, which he notes for the record because it has not always been a given this season. His sources remain vigilant regardless.

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By Jorf Porsson, CCW Insider, Run Differential Truther, Holder of Several Unverified Sources, and Man Who Has Spent Entirely Too Much Time Thinking About Plastic Baseball

The standings say the Short Shorts are in first place.
The run differential says the Moonshots might be the best team in the league.
The Hounds have won four straight despite carrying a run differential that resembles a natural disaster.
The Outlaws have the highest-scoring offense in the league and currently sit in fourth place.
The Ligers suddenly have the most unhittable pitcher in CCW.
The Gold Socks continue their noble quest to score enough runs to overcome whatever is happening on the mound.
The 8 Balls are better than their record and have the opportunity to prove it.
In other words, we have arrived at the point of the season where absolutely nobody knows anything.
Which means it is time for another Tuesday.

Moonshots (4-2) vs Hounds (4-3)
Probable Pitchers:Alec Buchman (0.00 ERA) vs Myc Witty (0.00 ERA)
The league's two hottest teams open the night, and frankly, this is the matchup I'm most excited about.
The Moonshots have spent most of the season quietly accumulating wins while running out one dominant pitching performance after another. Smithey hasn't allowed an earned run. Buchman hasn't allowed an earned run. Nims owns a 1.92 ERA. They have the best run differential in the league despite playing fewer games than everyone around them.
The Hounds, meanwhile, have completely rewritten their season.
Four straight wins.
A sweep of the Outlaws.
Myc Witty hitting .609 while simultaneously posting a 0.00 ERA.
Byron Young emerging as a legitimate front-line arm.
The Hounds are no longer the punchline attached to a -34 run differential. They're becoming a problem.
If Buchman and Witty are indeed the starters, runs may be difficult to come by. The difference could simply come down to which offense finds one mistake. The Moonshots have more lineup depth, but the Hounds have arguably the hottest player in the league.
Prediction:
Moonshots 3, Hounds 2

Short Shorts (6-2) vs Outlaws (5-5)
Probable Pitchers: Dustin Dowden (1.11 ERA) vs Mitch Buis (1.67 ERA)
This is the heavyweight fight of the evening.
The Short Shorts still sit atop the standings despite dropping two of their last four games. The Outlaws have spent the last two weeks reminding everyone that they can score on anybody while simultaneously reminding everyone that they need Mitch Buis available.
Fortunately for them, Buis appears poised to return.
The offensive stars are obvious.
Dudas. Scott. House.
Gurtcheff. Luker. Buis.
The interesting part is the pitching matchup.
Dowden has quietly been one of the most effective pitchers in CCW. His 1.11 ERA and microscopic WHIP are overshadowed because Brendan Dudas exists on the same roster.
Buis has been equally dominant and arguably more important to his team.
If this matchup happens, I expect playoff intensity in June.
Prediction:
Short Shorts 4, Outlaws 3

Gold Socks (3-5) vs Short Shorts (6-2)
Probable Pitchers: Austin Alles (10.00 ERA) vs Brayden Scott (0.00 ERA)
The Gold Socks are running out of moral victories.
Nobody questions their ability to score.
They have 50 runs in 8 games.
Alles is hitting .556.
Rudy Lyon has 5 home runs.
Connor Young continues to produce.
The problem remains that every game seems to require them to score six, seven, or eight runs just to survive.
Against Brayden Scott, that becomes difficult.
Scott has only logged four innings, but those four innings have been scoreless. More importantly, the Short Shorts continue to put pressure on opponents from top to bottom in the lineup.
If the Socks are going to steal one tonight, it likely happens here. The problem is that I've been writing that sentence for three weeks.
Prediction:
Gold Socks 4, Short Shorts 6

Hounds (4-3) vs Moonshots (4-2)
Probable Pitchers:Dalton Lewis (8.00 ERA) vs Kent Nims (1.92 ERA)
The second game between these clubs looks considerably different than the first.
Nims has quietly become one of the most valuable pitchers in the league. He doesn't generate quite the same headlines as Holden Palmer or Brendan Dudas, but every week he simply gives the Moonshots a chance to win.
The question is Dalton Lewis.
The Hounds don't necessarily need Lewis to dominate.
They need him to keep the game close long enough for Witty, Unversaw, and company to do damage.
That is exactly what happened during their sweep of the Outlaws.
The issue is that the Moonshots are much deeper than the Outlaws. There are fewer easy outs, fewer innings where you can relax.
The Hounds are playing excellent baseball right now, but this feels like a difficult matchup.
Prediction:
Moonshots 7, Hounds 4

Outlaws (5-5) vs Gold Socks (3-5)
Probable Pitchers:Jay Wilsey vs Rudy Lyon
This game has the potential to become deeply unserious.
The Outlaws lead the league with 79 runs scored.
The Gold Socks have allowed 63 runs.
Neither fact feels accidental.
Wilsey's stuff can be effective when he's around the zone. The Gold Socks, meanwhile, are always capable of producing a crooked number. Lyon is an intriguing wildcard because, unlike some of the Socks' recent pitching options, he represents something relatively unknown.
Unfortunately for the Gold Socks, the Outlaws remain the worst possible team to experiment against.
Gurtcheff and Luker are capable of turning a competitive game into a track meet very quickly.
Prediction:
Outlaws 10, Gold Socks 6

Ligers (3-4) vs 8 Balls (1-5)
Probable Pitchers:Aidan Palmer vs Reid Werner
This may quietly be the most important series of the night.
The Ligers are finally healthy.
The 8 Balls are finally competitive.
Both teams desperately need standings points.
Aidan Palmer remains one of the biggest unknowns in the league despite posting dominant numbers in limited action. Werner remains one of the league's most talented players despite not yet logging a pitching appearance this season.
This feels like a game where one swing decides everything.
If Werner is sharp, the 8 Balls absolutely have a path.
If Palmer is sharp, scoring may become impossible.
Prediction:
Ligers 3, 8 Balls 2

8 Balls (1-5) vs Ligers (3-4)
Probable Pitchers: Dustin Laugel (7.76 ERA) vs Holden Palmer (0.00 ERA)
I have spent several paragraphs this season discussing Holden Palmer.
I will now discuss him again.
Ten innings.
Zero earned runs.
Twenty-six strikeouts.
At some point the sample size stops being a sample size and starts becoming reality.
The 8 Balls do possess one thing that could make this interesting: power. Laugel and Werner have both demonstrated the ability to change a game with one swing.
The problem is that very few hitters have actually managed to square Holden up.
Until someone does, the burden of proof remains on everyone else.
Prediction:
8 Balls 1, Ligers 4

Jorf's Nightly Forecast
Most likely sweep:
Moonshots over Hounds
Most likely split:
Short Shorts vs Outlaws
Potential upset:
8 Balls over Ligers
Game of the Night:
Short Shorts vs Outlaws
Player most likely to dominate:
Myc Witty
Player most likely to hit multiple home runs:
Alex Gurtcheff
And remember:
The Hounds are somehow four games over their last five despite being -34.
The Outlaws have scored 79 runs and sit in fourth.
The Ligers suddenly employ a pitcher who appears legally entitled to every strikeout.
And somewhere, right now, the Gold Socks are trying to figure out how many runs they need to score to feel safe.
History suggests the answer is "more."

I have been doing this a long time. I have covered Jack Offs in the rain. I have covered walk-off full count, bases loaded, strike outs. I have covered a grand slam walk-off in the bottom of the last inning by a man named Connor Young. I have seen things that would make a lesser correspondent retire to a quieter beat — garden shows, perhaps, or municipal zoning hearings.

Nothing prepared me for June 10th.

On a single Tuesday evening, the Short Shorts lost to the 8 Balls. The Hounds — the Hounds, currently residing at -34 in run differential — swept the Outlaws. The Ligers swept the Gold Socks. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Holden Palmer threw a complete game shutout with 13 strikeouts that would have been the story of the week in any other week. It was not the pitching performance of the week in any meaningful narrative sense, because the narratives were all occupied elsewhere.
​
There is too much to cover. I will cover all of it. This is what I do.

--

1. Short Shorts — 6-2, +20 (Previously: 1st — HOLDS)

The Short Shorts lost two games in their last four. They also won two games. They are 6-2. They are still in first place. The hierarchy holds, even if the week was turbulent.

Let me explain the 8 Balls series, because it requires explanation. Game 1: the 8 Balls beat the Short Shorts 4-3. Brendan Dudas, for the first time all season, could not get it done on the mound — 4 runs, 5 hits, 2 walks through 3 innings. It happens. It happened on a night when a fill-in free agent named Ethan Winer started for the 8 Balls and gave them 1.1 innings before Alec Berninger came in and threw 1.2 innings of shutout ball to preserve the win. Berninger's season ERA is now 0.00 across 1.2 innings. He is technically unscored upon. I am noting this because it is the kind of detail that delights me. Dudas himself went 3-for-3 with a homer and 3 RBI in the loss, which tells you that the Short Shorts' floor on any given night is still formidable even when nothing is working.
Game 2: the Shorts won 7-2, Dustin Dowden threw 4 innings of 2-run ball and Jared Gray went 3-for-5 with a homer and 3 RBI. Order restored.

The season numbers for this team remain the most complete in the league. PP Scott: .579, 5 HR, 0.00 ERA in 4 innings, 5 Ks. Dudas: .556, 8 HR, 2.00 ERA in 10 innings, 20 Ks. Dowden: .385, 3 HR, 0.89 ERA in 9 innings. Cody House: .436, 5 HR, 4-for-4 with 3 RBI in one game last week. Gray emerging as a genuine contributor: .346, 1 HR, plus a Jack Off winner earlier this season. The depth is real, the talent is undeniable, and the two losses in their last four are explainable. First place is earned and held.

Next up: Short Shorts vs. Gold Socks (June 17) — the Socks desperately need a win and will be motivated. This is not a gimme.

--

2. Moonshots — 4-2, +26 (Previously: 3rd — UP 1)

The Moonshots didn't play this week. They are 4-2 with the second-best run differential in the league at +26. Their pitching staff — Smithey (0.00 ERA, 5 IP, 12 K), Buchman (0.00 ERA, 4 IP, 10 K), Nims (1.92 ERA, 8.1 IP, 10 K) — remains the deepest in the league by results, and every single arm has yet to allow an earned run in meaningful stretches. Their offense remains terrifying: Hart at .481 with 7 HR, Smithey at .563 with a 1.837 OPS, Hopkins at .452 with 5 HR. They are playing their next series against the Hounds, who are suddenly and genuinely dangerous.

The Moonshots move up one spot because the Outlaws had a historically bad week, which I will get to shortly. The Moonshots have done nothing wrong. They have also done nothing lately, which is the cost of a schedule that still owes them games. When they take the field on Wednesday, they will be the most well-rested team in the league with the sharpest pitching staff and a lineup that hasn't been touched by adversity since the Connor Young game. I'm watching closely.

Next up: Moonshots vs. Hounds (June 17) — the most intriguing matchup on the schedule this week. Myc Witty vs. Will Smithey cagematch. Circle it.

--

3. Hounds Wiffle Club — 4-3, -34 (Previously: 5th — UP 2)

My sources have been telling me for three weeks that the run differential was a mirage. I published those takes. Some of you laughed at me. I am not laughing back, because I am a professional, but I am noting, for the record, that the Hounds have won four of their last five and have just swept the Outlaws.

Let me be precise about what happened on June 10th. The Hounds won two games against a team missing Mitch Buis and Ian Garavalia — that context matters, and I will return to it when I discuss the Outlaws — but they didn't just win. They put up 9 and 10 runs against the best offensive team in the league. Myc Witty went 4-for-6 with a HR and a double in Game 1, then went 3-for-5 with 3 home runs and 4 RBI in Game 2. Mitch Unversaw went 4-for-5 with 2 HR and 2 RBI in Game 2. DLewy went 3-for-5 with a homer in Game 1. Ethan New added a home run. The Hounds are hitting .484 as a team — second in the league — and Myc Witty at .609 with a 1.842 OPS is quietly one of the best hitters in the league.

The pitching remains a tale of two realities. Byron Young is emerging as a genuine fast-pitch arm: 10 IP, 2.00 ERA, 12 Ks, 2 wins. Witty's line — 5 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 13 Ks, 0.00 ERA — speaks for itself and needs no elaboration from me, only reverence. DLewy on the mound remains volatile — 8.00 ERA, 6 IP — but he gave his team enough on Tuesday in Game 1.

The -34 run differential is real, and it was built on blowout losses in the early season to teams that exposed the depth. Those games happened. The Hounds cannot un-lose them. But their subsequent run, including a sweep of the Outlaws and earlier a Jack Off win over the Short Shorts, is not a coincidence. This team is playing its best wiffle ball of the season and belongs in the top three right now.

Next up: Moonshots vs. Hounds (June 17) — I said circle it. Did you circle it?

--

4. Outlaws — 5-5, +23 (Previously: 2nd — DOWN 2)

I do not enjoy writing this section. I want that on the record. The Outlaws are still fourth — not because they are a bad team, but because the week they just had demands accountability, and because three teams above them have either performed better recently or carry more convincing credentials.

Here is what happened: Buis was out. Garavalia was out. The Outlaws played two games against a Hounds team on a hot streak without their two most reliable contributors on the mound, and they lost both. Cade Luker started Game 2 and allowed 9 runs on 15 hits. Gurtcheff started Game 1 and was fine through three innings before the time limit forced the team to throw meatballs to speed up outs — a strategy, my sources confirm, that produced the opposite of outs. Ten runs on 11 hits. The Outlaws are now 5-5, and for the first time this season, .500 feels like a description rather than a floor.

Now here is the other side: Gurtch hit 7-for-10 with a homer across the two games. Luker went 5-for-6 with a double and homer in Game 1, 4-for-6 with two homers and 3 RBI in Game 2. The offense is still elite — Gurtch at .609 with 13 HR and a 2.082 OPS leads the league in most meaningful offensive categories. Luker is at .551 with 8 HR. Buis has a 1.33 ERA in 9 innings with 17 Ks. Garavalia is 2.67 ERA in 3 innings. When this team is whole, they are a title contender.

The word "when" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Buis’ and Garavalia’s absences exposed depth issues, both at the plate and on the mound. The Outlaws' pitching depth — Luker's 9.82 ERA in 3.2 innings, Gurtch's 5.11 ERA in 18 innings — is not built to survive missing their top two arms. This week was a hard lesson in that reality.
Next up: Outlaws vs. Ligers (June 17) — a winnable series against a team riding momentum, which makes it less winnable than it sounds.

--

5. Ligers — 3-4, -10 (Previously: 6th — UP 1)

Last week I wrote that the Ligers needed games and needed results. They got both. They swept the Gold Socks and did it in a way that suggests this team has been unlocking something over the last two weeks.

Game 1 featured Aidan Palmer making his pitching debut: 2.2 innings, zero hits, zero runs, six strikeouts. He did not throw more because the Ligers were managing his innings deliberately against the Gold Socks, preserving future availability. That is a professional decision about a player who is now revealing himself as a real two-way weapon. DJ, back with a wrist brace that finally lets him swing fully, went 4-for-5 with 3 home runs. Karwoski went 4-for-5 with 2 HR. This was a complete offensive performance.

Game 2 was Holden Palmer's statement. Thirteen strikeouts. Four hits. One walk. Zero runs. Five complete innings. A shutout of a Gold Socks lineup that, on paper, should be able to hit. Holden's season line: 10 IP, 0.00 ERA, 26 Ks, 0.90 WHIP. Twenty-six strikeouts in ten innings is not a stat I am accustomed to typing. It suggests a pitcher who, when locked in, is functionally unhittable. Connor Young allowed 4 runs on only 4 hits — three of which went over the fence — which is the kind of pitching line that makes a scorer's hands shake.

The Ligers are 3-4, on a two-game win streak, and DJ being healthy changes this team's offensive identity. The matchup against the Outlaws on Wednesday will be revealing for both teams.

Next up: Ligers vs. Outlaws (June 17) — two teams that need a good week, and only one can have it.

--

6. Gold Socks — 3-5, -13 (Previously: 4th — DOWN 2)

The Gold Socks are in a difficult place, and the stats make it hard to look away. Austin Alles has an 8.00 ERA in 9 innings on the mound, with 8 home runs allowed, and has now surrendered 18 earned runs. He is also hitting .556 with 6 HR and a 1.568 OPS, because of course he is. The Connor Young who closed out the Moonshots last week is at a 4.31 ERA in 13 innings. Dalsen Murdock — "Todd Mudrock," as my sources in the alternate timeline refer to him — came in for one inning of relief this week and allowed 4 runs on 5 hits, including 4 home runs. In one inning. My sources are still processing this.

The Gold Socks' pitching staff has allowed 63 runs in 8 games. They score 50 runs — good for third in the league. The gap between what they put on the board and what they allow is -13, and it has now cost them back-to-back losses in a week where they were swept by a Ligers team that was previously 1-4.

Rudy Lyon is at .424 with 5 HR and continues to hit. Alles at the plate is elite. Tristan Dudas and Colt Cantrell are contributing. This is a genuinely good offensive team that is being drowned by its own pitching, and the schedule is not getting easier. Gold Socks vs. Short Shorts next week is not a series they can afford to lose if they want to stay in the conversation.

Next up: Gold Socks vs. Short Shorts (June 17) — they need a miracle or a pitching performance that we have not yet seen from anyone in this rotation.

--

7. 8 Balls — 1-5, -12 (Previously: 7th — HOLDS)

The 8 Balls got their first win of the season. They got it against the Short Shorts. They did it with Alec Berninger throwing 1.2 innings of shutout relief, Justin Swingler going 2-for-2 with an RBI double, and Reid Werner going 2-for-3 with an RBI. It was a genuine, earned, legitimate victory against the best team in the league, and it should be celebrated without an asterisk.

The larger problem remains the record. One win in six games, -12 run differential, a pitching staff that has been inconsistent even as the offense has quietly produced. Dustin Laugel — who I continue to believe is one of the most underrated players in the league — is at .464 with 6 HR and 14 RBI, the most in the league. Werner is at .357 with 3 HR. The offensive pieces are real.

The mound situation is where things have gone sideways. Laugel's ERA is 7.76 in 5.2 innings, with 4 HR allowed. Swingler is quietly solid — 2.40 ERA in 5 innings, 9 Ks — but reportedly was unable to throw last week due to shoulder pain. Werner hasn't logged a pitching appearance yet in the system, and Kylo Rain's arm is something this team needs to unlock before the season gets away from them.

The 8 Balls play the Hounds on Wednesday. My sources believe this is a winnable series. The 8 Balls need to agree.
Next up: 8 Balls vs. Hounds (June 17) — the first winnable series matchup this team has had in a while. Take it.

--

— Jorf Porsson has filed this report under extreme emotional duress following what happened to the Outlaws on Wednesday. He is fine. He will be fine. His sources are monitoring the situation.

​

Outlaws (5-3) vs Hounds (2-3)
Probable Pitchers:
Alex Gurtcheff (4.64 ERA) vs. Byron Young (1.00 ERA)
Jay Wilsey vs. Dalton Lewis (17.50 ERA)

The Hounds catch the Outlaws at a good time this week, as they’re down both Mitch Buis and Ian Garavalia. Their pitching and lineup depth will be tested, and the Hounds might see a juicy target, as they hope to stack some wins. Still, they’re likely to rest Witty and save him for the inevitable game 3 against Buis. 

Believe it or not, Gurtcheff has thrown more innings than anyone else in the league so far this year, and that’ll continue this week with the Outlaws’ other two primary pitchers unavailable. He’s coming off his best start of the season, surrendering just two runs through 5, but with an unsustainable strand rate. Byron looked much improved in his lone outing of the young season, but he’ll have a tougher task in store against this Outlaws offense. 

Game 2 has the looks of a time limit-shortened slugfest, with the Outlaws digging into their depth arms, and the Hounds countering with DLewy. Lewis struggled in his first outing this season, but has a proven track record of keeping his team in games - he should get more offensive backing this game than in his previous one. Wilsey’s stuff plays, but he has to put it on the zone, or this Hounds team will happily take their lob pitches. Cade Luker will be available in a pinch for the Outlaws too, if needed. 

Predictions- 
Game 1 - Outlaws 5, Hounds 6
Game 2 - Outlaws 7, Hounds 5

Ligers (1-4) vs. Gold Socks (3-3)
Probable Pitchers:
Aidan Palmer vs. Austin Alles (10.00 ERA)
Holden Palmer (0.00 ERA) vs. Connor Young (5.56 ERA)

The Ligers and Gold Socks series may be the most pivotal of the week, with both teams looking to turn their momentum around. The Ligers are off to a tough start, but their strength on paper is the top of their rotation, and they’ve only thrown a Palmer in one game this season - which they lost in a Jack Off after a scoreless regulation. Connor Young saved the vibes in Socks camp after a walk-off grand slam last week - but they were dangerously close to dropping both games. 

As it is every week with the Ligers, the pitching plans are purely speculative, but I think this is the week they open the stables and let the Palmer brothers loose. Aidan hasn’t thrown yet this season, but it’s a safe bet to expect him to be a borderline top 5 pitcher in the league year over year. If he takes on the struggling Alles, you can expect the Ligers to force him to throw strikes and hope to take advantage in slow pitch counts. One or two slow-pitch bombs may be all the Ligers' hobbled offense needs to pull out a win. 

Young has been a solid arm for the Socks this season, but he will have a tall task ahead of him if he does match up against Holden. Holden sported a new riser that he was consistently putting on the board in his one excellent outing - if he can pair that with his signature hammer curve going forward, we’re talking about an elite pitcher. If Dylan Jones’ injury is still a factor, scoring runs is going to be a challenge for the Ligers, but if Holden keeps up his momentum, they may need only one. 

Predictions -
Game 1 - Ligers 4, Gold Socks 0
Game 2 - Ligers 4, Gold Socks 1

8 Balls (0-4) vs. Short Shorts (5-1)
Probable Pitchers:
Dustin Laugel (8.57 ERA) vs. Dustin Dowden (0.00 ERA)
Justin Swingler (3.00 ERA) vs. Brendan Dudas (0.71 ERA)

The 8 Balls are in need of a gimme game, and they’ll unfortunately not find one this week against the top-of-the-league Shorts team. With Werner delaying his start against the Shorts until later in the season, Laugel and Swingler will again have a powerful opposing offense to deal with. 

Dowden threw a shutout and kept pace with Myc Witty in his first start of the year, with his team taking the loss only in a tiebreaking Jack Off. Laugel will have to toss a gem, and an 8 Ball hitter will have to knock a ball over the fence to take the W here - Dustin isn’t someone you’re likely to string hits together against. 

Swingler looked strong in his first outing against the Outlaws last week, and he’ll look to build on that experience against a tough Shorts lineup. Dudas on the mound has been a revelation, and one of the biggest stories of the young season. The 8 Balls will hope for his production to tail off, and to steal this one on the back of a strong outing from Swingler. 

Predictions - 
Game 1 - 8 Balls 1, Short Shorts 5
Game 2 - 8 Balls 2, Short Shorts 4

​

I told you. I told you this league had layers. I told you that the standings would shift, that the comfortable hierarchies would be disturbed, and that someone — someone unexpected — would step into a moment too large for them and make it look small. I told you all of this, and most of you nodded politely and then went home and didn't think about it until Wednesday, when the games happened.

I thought about it every day.

Week 4 delivered. The Hounds — the Hounds, the team sitting at -44 in run differential, the team I described in my last column as having "an interesting week ahead" with all the diplomatic understatement I could muster — went out on June 3rd and beat the Short Shorts in a Jack Off. Myc Witty did Myc Witty things. Byron Young did something nobody expected. And across the diamond, in the game of the young season, a man named Connor Young walked to the plate with the bases loaded, his team down three, in the bottom of the last inning, and hit a grand slam.

I do not make the news. I simply report it. But I will note, for the record, that my sources had flagged Connor Young's bat as an underrated weapon weeks ago. The sources are always right. They are simply sometimes early.

Here are the Week 4 Power Rankings.

--

1. Short Shorts — 5-1, +16 (Previously: 1st — HOLDS)

The Short Shorts lost a game. It was a Jack Off. It was against Myc Witty at his most unhittable. They responded by winning 7-1. They are 5-1. They hold first place. The hierarchy stands.

Let me be precise about what happened in Game 1, because the loss deserves context: Dustin Dowden was excellent. Nine strikeouts, two hits allowed through regulation, zero runs. He was not the problem. The problem was that Myc Witty was even better — one hit, thirteen strikeouts through a complete game — and in a scoreless Jack Off, Byron Young delivered the decisive home run. The Shorts lost a game in which their pitcher was dominant because the other pitcher was more dominant. That is not a red flag. That is wiffle ball.

Game 2 removed any ambiguity. Brendan Dudas — who continues to be the most complete two-way player in the league and I will hill-die on that — threw three innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts, then went 3-for-4 with two home runs and three RBI at the plate. Cody "The Mobile Home" House went 4-for-4 with a homer and three RBI. Dustin Dowden added two hits and a home run. The Hounds' pitching in game 2 simply could not contain what the Short Shorts bring.

The numbers tell a complete story. PP Scott, through 5 games: .579 AVG, 5 HR, 2.154 OPS. Dudas: .483, 7 HR, 1.718 OPS. House: .484, 4 HR, 1.317 OPS. Dowden: .412, 3 HR, 1.359 OPS. Scott on the mound: 0.00 ERA, 4 IP, 2 hits. Dudas on the mound: 0.57 ERA, 7 IP, 15 Ks, 1 earned run. These are not stats. These are a manifesto. The Short Shorts are the best team in the league and they are not particularly close to being displaced.

Next up: a 2-game set against a struggling 8 Balls squad, with a chance to further cement their dominance. 

--

2. Outlaws — 5-3, +33 (Previously: 3rd — UP 1)

The run differential doesn't lie. The Outlaws lead the entire league at +33 — eleven points ahead of the Moonshots — and they earned it this week by sweeping the 8 Balls in back-to-back nailbiters that required everything they had. That is not a soft sweep. That is the kind of performance that reveals character.

In Game 1, in Ian Garavalia’s debut pitching performance of the season — three innings, two runs, three hits, five strikeouts — he gave the Outlaws exactly what they needed while the offense did the rest. Gurtch went 2-for-3 with a homer. Cade Luker went 2-for-3 with a homer. They won by two.

Game 2 was better, and stranger, and more Outlaws than anything I have seen this season. Gurtcheff threw a complete five innings, scattering nine hits — all singles — allowing just two runs and striking out six. Then, in the bottom of the last inning, with the 8 Balls having loaded the bases with two outs and down only a run, Gurtch fell behind Keegan Caughey 4-0 in the count — one ball from a walk, one walk from the tying run scoring, one walk from a very different column — and floated in three straight strikes to end it. If that pitch sequence does not appear in the CCW postseason highlight package, I will be personally filing a complaint with the league office.

Gurtch's full-season pitching line: 14 IP, 3.71 ERA, 16 Ks. His hitting line: .583, 12 HR, 2.226 OPS. He’s in the running for a Yellow Slugger, at least through the early going. Mitch Buis continues to hit (.500, 4 HR, 1.294 OPS) and pitch (9 IP, 1.33 ERA, 17 Ks) at an elite level. The Outlaws are rolling.

The only reason they are not first is that the Short Shorts remain 5-1 while the Outlaws are 5-3, and I respect the record. But the Outlaws have played three more games, have the best run differential in the league, and may have the most balanced roster. They are not far behind.

Next up: The Outlaws tangle with Myc Witty and the suddenly-respectable Hounds. 

--

3. Midcity Moonshots — 4-2, +26 (Previously: 2nd — DOWN 1)

The Moonshots had their best pitching performance of the season in Game 1 against the Gold Socks and lost Game 2 in the most theatrical manner possible. That is the Moonshots experience, distilled into one Tuesday.

Alec Buchman was sensational in the opener — 2 hits, 10 strikeouts through 4 innings, zero runs. The offense backed him up: Kent Nims went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI, Will Smithey went 2-for-5 with a 3-run homer, and the Moonshots won 5-0. This is exactly the version of this team that the preseason projections were built on. The Moonshots, when Buchman is dialed in and the offense is clicking, are formidable.

Game 2 is where the story gets complicated. Kent Nims held the Gold Socks scoreless through four innings, then allowed four runs in the fifth. Smithey homered again — 2-for-4, a HR, 2 RBI on the day — and Josh Hart went 1-for-2 with a homer and two walks. The Moonshots carried a 3-0 lead into the final frame. And then Connor Young happened, and 3-0 became 3-4, and the Moonshots drove home with a loss that came down to one pitch at one moment.

I am not particularly concerned about the Moonshots' trajectory. They are 4-2, they have the second-best run differential in the league at +26, and their pitching — Smithey's 0.00 ERA in 5 innings, Buchman's 0.00 ERA in 4 innings, Nims at 1.92 ERA — is among the deepest in the league. The offense features Hart at .481 with 7 HR, Smithey at .563 with 3 HR and a 1.837 OPS, Hopkins at .452 with 5 HR, and Starke at .588. This is a very good team. They are third this week because the Outlaws have played more games and have a better run differential, not because anything is wrong.

Next up: Moonshots take a Bye week. 

--

4. Gold Socks — 3-3, -5 (Previously: 4th — HOLDS)

The Gold Socks are .500. The Gold Socks have a -5 run differential. The Gold Socks are also the team that produced the play of the season, the moment everyone will be talking about, and the walk-off grand slam that I personally witnessed through my sources and have not stopped thinking about since.

Connor Young's line against the Moonshots: 5 innings, 3 runs, 6 hits, 3 walks, and then, with the bases loaded and his team down three in the last inning, a grand slam that turned a loss into a win in the span of one swing. My sources are telling me that the ball is still traveling. I am choosing to believe them.

The structural problems remain real. Austin Alles is a talented pitcher who has now allowed 14 earned runs in 7 innings — he cannot locate his electric stuff consistently enough, and when he gets behind, the damage accumulates fast. This week against the Moonshots: 5 runs on 7 hits and a walk through 3 innings, including 8 Ks on the 9 outs he did record. That ratio tells you everything — when Alles is throwing strikes, he is unhittable. The walks and slow pitch counts are what keep sinking him.

The offense is genuinely good. Alles himself is hitting .567 with 5 HR and a 1.633 OPS. Rudy Lyon is at .500 with 5 HR and a 1.446 OPS. Tristan Dudas at .471. Connor Young — who has been quietly excellent at the plate all season — now has 3 HR and an 1.168 OPS, and a grand slam that will be in the highlight package. Colt Cantrell has 4 HR. If the pitching stabilizes, this team is still in the hunt. If it doesn't, they are a dangerous .500 team who will make someone's postseason very difficult.

Next up: A two-game set against a rested Ligers team. 

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5. Hounds Wiffle Club — 2-3, -44 (Previously: 5th — HOLDS)

The number is still -44. I am aware of the number. You are aware of the number. The Hounds are aware of the number. And yet here they are, coming off another convincing win against the best team in the league, with their ace looking like an absolute force of nature on the mound.

Let me tell you about Myc Witty's Tuesday: one hit allowed, thirteen strikeouts, a complete game shutout against the defending champions. Thirteen strikeouts. Against the Short Shorts. The same Short Shorts who have PP Scott and Brendan Dudas and Cody House and Dustin Dowden producing at an elite level all season. Witty stifled them, held them scoreless through regulation, and when the Jack Off came, Byron Young — who has now contributed to multiple Hounds wins in ways that the box score cannot fully capture — hit the decisive home run to seal it.

Witty's season line: 5 IP, 1 hit, 0 earned runs, 0 walks, 13 strikeouts. That is the best pitching performance in the league from a pure rate standpoint, full stop. The reason he has not accumulated more innings is the weather, the schedule, and the format. When he pitches, the Hounds win. The equation is that straightforward.

The -44 run differential exists because of the blowout losses to the Moonshots and Outlaws earlier in the season. If you bracket those out, the Hounds have been competitive. DLewy is hitting .542 on the season. Witty himself is at .583. Byron Young is developing into a genuine contributor. The pieces are better than the record shows, and the record is starting to show it.

Next up: A chance to gain momentum against the Outlaws. 

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6. 8 Balls — 0-4, -8 (Previously: 7th — UP 1)

The 8 Balls lost two games by a combined three runs to the best team in the league by run differential. They are 0-4. Both of those facts are true simultaneously and they create a complicated picture that I will now attempt to uncomplicate.

The 8 Balls are not a bad team. They are a winless team, which is a different thing. Game 1 against the Outlaws: competitive until the final out, Dustin Laugel on the mound, throwing well enough to keep them in it before the time limit ended the game, and Laugel himself going 2-for-4 with two solo home runs. Game 2: Justin Swingler threw 5 innings, allowed 3 runs on 6 hits, struck out 9, and lost by one run because his offense stranded the bases loaded in the bottom of the last inning. Alec Berninger went 3-for-4. This is not a team that is getting blown out. This is a team that has faced the Outlaws and Gold Socks in four of its first four games and has not won any of them. And, Reid Werner has yet to take the ball for the team.

The Lush is the story on this roster. Dustin Laugel: .591 AVG, 6 HR, 13 RBI, 2.034 OPS. He has more RBI than anyone in the league. He is hitting like a middle-of-the-order force on a team that desperately needs him to keep doing exactly that. Reid Werner is at .318 with 2 HR; but it’s only a matter of time before that bat wakes up.

The 8 Balls need a win. Not for momentum — for points. They have zero. The schedule will eventually give them a more favorable matchup, and when it does, Laugel and Werner need to deliver.

Next up: No rest for the 8 Balls, with a two-game set against the Shorts on tap. 

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7. Ligers — 1-4, -18 (Previously: 6th — DOWN 1)

The Ligers did not play this week, which means this column is doing to them exactly what the weather has been doing to everyone — showing up uninvited and making things worse. They sit at 1-4, on a four-game losing streak, and their idle week allowed the 8 Balls to leapfrog them in my estimation based purely on recent competitive performance.

Aidan Palmer remains the one player on this roster who belongs in the league MVP conversation — .520 AVG, 5 HR, 1.680 OPS — and he is being let down by a supporting cast that has not yet found its footing. Holden Palmer turned in a gem in his first outing — but the pitching has collectively allowed 36 runs in 5 games. Dylan Jones is at .286 with a hand injury that had him swinging one-handed for stretches. That is not a sustainable condition for a player this team needs.

The Holden Palmer shutout performance against the Moonshots in Week 2 — scoreless through regulation against a loaded lineup, 13 Ks — remains the most promising single pitching outing from any Liger this season. If that version of Holden shows up consistently, and if DJ gets healthy, and if the lineup around Aidan Palmer starts to produce, this team's ceiling is still real. The floor, however, is also very real, and it is currently where they are standing.

Next up: The Ligers look to gain some ground against the Socks.

— Jorf Porsson was present for all of this, at least spiritually. His sources were present physically. The distinction matters less than the information. Lock in.


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Week 4 Previews and Predictions
After 4 consecutive weeks of games being fully cancelled, partially cancelled, or heavily impacted by weird weather, the forecast for tomorrow in Indianapolis is 83 and sunny. Unless cosmic forces conspire against us again, we should be in for a full slate of Wiffle Ball action. 

Short Shorts (4-0) vs. Hounds (1-2)
Probable Pitchers:
Dustin Dowden (Shorts) vs. Myc Witty (Hounds)
Brendan Dudas (Shorts) vs. Byron Young (Hounds)

The undefeated defending champions, the Shorts, have a tall task to defend their lossless season, going up against Witty and the Hounds. Their record is lacking, and their run differential is laughable, but the Hounds have played (and won!) just one fast pitch contest so far. If Witty is on the bump, it’s as close to an auto-win as it gets in wiffle ball. 

Meanwhile, the Shorts will get their first action from Dowden on the mound, who looks poised to be a formidable 1B in their rotation. He’s consistent and reliable, and has as good a chance to keep his team in the game against Witty as anyone. Dudas shut the Outlaws down in his lone appearance so far this year - striking out 8 and holding them scoreless through 4. If he repeats the same sort of performance this week, we’re officially on “oh shit, Dudas has figured out how to pitch” watch. 

It’s likely to be a long day for Hounds’ batters - they’ll be hoping for Dudas to be off the board, or for Witty or Cody Taylor to run into a ball or two and send them a long way. The Shorts are missing Brayden Scott and Jared Gray this week - two early-season successes in the lineup - and will need someone like Cody House to step up this week and complement Dudas at the plate. 

Prediction -
Game 1 - Shorts 0; Hounds 1
Game 2 - Shorts 5; Hounds 2

Moonshots (3-1) vs. Gold Socks (2-2)
Probable Pitchers:
Alec Buchman (Moonshots) vs. Austin Alles (Gold Socks)
Kent Nims (Moonshots) vs. Connor Young (Gold Socks)
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The Moonshots will look to continue their ascent against a Gold Socks team looking for their first fast pitch wins. Will Smithey appears to be electing to push his start against the Socks until their third match-up, which will give the ‘Shots a huge advantage in that game, unless the Socks also shake things up this week. If not, they’ll need to win both of these games to feel good about locking up the season series. 

We’re still awaiting the first Buchman outing of the season, and it sounds like we’ll finally get it this week. It’s been said ad nauseam - but if Buchman looks close to how he did at his early 2020’s peak, the Moonshots have two legitimate aces. Alles struggled in his first outing of the year - will he bounce back and look more like the number 1 the Socks need him to be, or will those woes continue? This game 1 matchup could just as easily be a 1-0 game as a 9-8 game, with those question marks on both sides. 

Kent Nims threw a shutout in his first appearance - though you could put plenty of asterisks on that game score. He was facing a hobbled Ligers lineup in extremely pitcher-friendly conditions. Kent will look to prove that it wasn’t a fluke against a Socks lineup that has no issue hitting fast pitch when it’s on the board. 

Prediction -
Game 1 - Moonshots 4; Gold Socks 2
Game 2 - Moonshots 6; Gold Socks 5

Outlaws (3-3) vs. 8 Balls (0-2)
Probable Pitchers:
Ian Garavalia (Outlaws) vs. Reid Werner (8 Balls)
Alex Gurtcheff (Outlaws) vs. Dustin Laugel (8 Balls)

It’s June, and the 8 Balls are just now getting their first fast-pitch games under their belts, due to the aforementioned weather-related cancellations. They’re hunting their first win of the summer, and if these matchups hold and Reid faces anyone but Mitch Buis for the Outlaws, there’s a good chance they’ll get one. Similar to the Moonshots, the Outlaws look to be punting their ace to the third game of the series. 

Reid is the reigning MVP and one of the best two-way wiffle ball players on the planet. He’s one of the few guys who can win a game on his own, on both sides of the ball. He’s surrounded by players that, on paper, look more like role players than impact talent, though, so unfortunately for the 8 Balls, they may need Reid to do that more often than not to find wins this season. Laugel also gets the ball this series, and he’ll undoubtedly keep his team in the game, but it may be a tall order to quiet the Outlaws' bats for a whole series. 

Garavalia makes his season debut on the mound as well, for an Outlaws team with a number two starter role up for grabs. If Ian looks good and can keep his team in the game against Werner, results notwithstanding, the Outlaws will be happy to keep plugging him into the second starter role. That’s in large part due to Gurtcheff’s hit-and-miss performance so far this season on the mound - his ERA over 6 isn’t disastrous, but one you’d prefer matching up against other teams’ third arms, and not their second. He does lead the league in offensive total value by a country mile in the limited sample, though, which makes up for that uneven pitching performance. 
​
Prediction -
Game 1 - Outlaws 1; 8 Balls 3
Game 2 - Outlaws 7, 8 Balls 5

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Something is wrong in Indianapolis.

Not the roads — those have always been wrong, that is a separate investigation for a separate publication. I am talking about something more insidious. Something that has eluded meteorologists, physicists, and the general population of Circle City Wiffle Ball players who simply want to get outside on a Wednesday night and throw a plastic ball at each other. I am talking about the systematic, deliberate, and frankly personal targeting of CCW fast-pitch nights by the forces of precipitation, chaos, and what I can only describe as cosmological hostility.

I have spent time — considerable time — examining the evidence. What I have found has shaken me to my core. What I am about to share with you is not speculation. It is not a hot take. It is investigative journalism of the highest order, delivered with the gravitas that this story deserves and the urgency that this league demands.
The weather is not broken. The weather is broken on purpose. And it knows your schedule.

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THE EVIDENCE: A CHRONICLE OF METEOROLOGICAL BETRAYAL

Let us review the record, because the record does not lie, even when it is deeply upsetting.

Sunday, May 3rd — Opening Day. The league opens in chilly, uncomfortable conditions. Not a rainout, technically. But cold enough that players were effectively asking themselves why they chose this sport over something sensible, like chess. The weather made a statement: I am here. I am watching. I will not give you warmth.

Wednesday, May 6th — First Fast Pitch Night. All but two games rained out. The Outlaws and Gold Socks played their series while the rest of the league watched water fall from the sky. Five teams sat at home. The wiffle ball stayed dry. Everything else did not.

Wednesday, May 13th. The games were played, technically, which I suppose counts as a win. However, sources at the scene describe conditions as "borderline unplayable" — winds howling directly into the field with the kind of ferocity usually reserved for weather events that get their own names. Temperatures that refused to approach 60 degrees. A wiffle ball, which weighs approximately as much as a strong opinion, behaving like a kite that someone has given up on. Pitchers' duels happened not because pitchers were dominant, but because the wind was dominant, and the ball simply refused to go anywhere. Brayden Scott threw a two-hit shutout and deserves his credit, but let the record reflect that the wind was also pitching that night.

Wednesday, May 20th — Full rainout. Gone. Cancelled. Washed away. Seven teams, zero games, one league looking at the sky with the exhausted expression of people who have been through this before.

Wednesday, May 27th. I am writing this article on May 27th. It is raining. It has been raining since Tuesday. Local meteorologists, with what I consider to be a suspicious amount of cheerfulness, are reporting "locally heavy rainfall," "scattered downpours," "slow-moving storms," and something called a "stalled boundary swiveling across central Indiana." A stalled boundary. The weather is not even moving. It has parked itself over our city like a guest who saw the guest room and decided to stay indefinitely.

The pattern is clear. The pattern is damning. The pattern suggests something far more organized than any naturally occurring atmospheric system should be.

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HYPOTHESIS ONE: THE OMEGA BLOCK IS MOCKING US

In the past two weeks, meteorologists across Indianapolis have been talking excitedly about something called an Omega Block — a large high-pressure dome named after the Greek letter Ω because of the shape it makes in the jet stream. This pattern, forecasters explain with barely contained delight, "blocks weather systems from moving west to east" and creates a prolonged stretch of dry, sunny, beautiful weather.

My sources confirm that this Omega Block is expected to deliver clear skies through at least next week, possibly beyond, with highs in the low 80s and what one meteorologist described as "a quiet pattern."

I want you to sit with that for a moment. A quiet pattern. Beginning Thursday, May 28th.

The Omega Block — the great atmospheric stabilizer, the dome of glorious dry air, the pattern responsible for what promises to be some of the nicest late-May weather Indianapolis has seen — arrives on Thursday. Not Wednesday. Thursday. Twenty-four hours after CCW's scheduled game night. The Omega Block is aware of the CCW schedule and has adjusted accordingly.

The Greek letter Omega, I will note, is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. It means "the end." I do not think this is a coincidence. The Omega Block is not just blocking weather systems. It is sending a message about what happens to wiffle ball dreams.

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HYPOTHESIS TWO: THE INDY 500 HAS CONNECTIONS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND

The 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 took place on Sunday, May 24th, 2026. In the days leading up to the race, forecasters gave it a 60% chance of rain right at green flag time — 12:45 PM. Weather Underground had it at 60. Yahoo Weather had it at 60. The radar looked ominous. Fans were nervous. The sports world braced for a delay.

And then? The race ran. The weather cooperated. Conditions at Indianapolis Motor Speedway were, by all accounts, manageable. Cars turned left at 220 miles per hour and everything was fine.

More than 300,000 people attended. Sponsors paid millions of dollars. Television deals stretched into the hundreds of millions. The international media descended. And with all of that at stake, the clouds looked at what was happening at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and simply… parted.

Meanwhile, on May 20th — four days before the race — Circle City Wiffle Ball's Wednesday night games were wiped out completely. The rain that politely stepped aside for NASCAR's biggest event apparently needed somewhere to go, and it chose the Dirtyard.

My sources are investigating whether there is a formal agreement between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the regional precipitation systems. I cannot confirm this yet. But I am asking questions, and I want it known that I am asking them.

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HYPOTHESIS THREE: THE TUESDAY PIPELINE

The data reveals a chilling pattern at the individual weather event level. In nearly every week that CCW's Wednesday nights have been impacted, the rain does not simply appear on Wednesday morning out of nowhere. It arrives Tuesday and decides to stay.

This is not an accident. This is infrastructure.

Something — and I am not yet prepared to say what — is feeding weather systems into central Indiana on Tuesday evenings with sufficient force and moisture that by Wednesday at 6 PM, the Dirtyard and the Graveyard are either underwater or bracing for conditions that have no business being applied to a wiffle ball. The May 26-27 event is the most egregious example: a weak system pushed north from Kentucky into Indiana, with scattered showers expected on and off Tuesday and into Wednesday. Tuesday to Wednesday. The rain commutes. It has a routine.
​
I want to know who is running the Tuesday pipeline. I want names.

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HYPOTHESIS FOUR: ASTRONOMICAL ALIGNMENT, OR AS I CALL IT, "THE COSMOS HAS OPINIONS ABOUT PLASTIC BALLS"

My research team — which is me, very late at night, on a website called StarWalk Pro — has confirmed that several notable astronomical events have coincided with CCW's weather-disrupted Wednesdays.

May is, historically, a month of planetary transition. Jupiter was visible in the western sky in early May. Mercury, the planet of communication and scheduling, went into retrograde in April and its effects linger. Saturn, which governs structure, discipline, and outdoor sporting leagues, was in a challenging square aspect with the sun throughout most of the month.

None of these things would mean anything, probably, to a mainstream scientist. But I am not a mainstream scientist. I am Jorf Porsson, and I have sources in multiple fields, including fields that mainstream scientists do not fully acknowledge.

What I can tell you is that the specific combination of Mercury retrograde, a challenging Saturn square, and a Jupiter that is simply minding its own business in the western sky creates what astrologers call an "adversarial outdoor leisure pattern." I may have coined that phrase myself just now, but the point stands. The planets have been poorly arranged for recreational wiffle ball in central Indiana, and until someone conducts a formal astronomical audit of the CCW schedule, I will continue to raise this possibility in print.

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HYPOTHESIS FIVE: IT IS SIMPLY MAY IN INDIANA, BUT THAT FEELS INSUFFICIENT

I have been told, by people who claim to understand meteorology, that May in Indianapolis is simply a wet month. That the area sees an average of 21 rainy days in May. That central Indiana sits in a part of the country where weather systems from the Gulf of Mexico and cold fronts from Canada collide on a regular basis and produce, as one forecaster put it with maddening casualness, "a lot of rain in spring."

I reject this framing. Yes, May averages over 20 rainy days in Indianapolis. Yes, there is more moisture in the atmosphere during spring. Yes, this is a well-documented meteorological pattern with a century of data behind it. But none of that explains why the rain is specifically falling on Wednesdays, specifically at times when wiffle ball is scheduled, and specifically clearing up by Thursday when everyone has already gone home.

The statistics say May is rainy. The statistics do not say May is targeted. I am saying May is targeted. These are different claims and I stand behind mine.

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THIS IS NOT NEW

My investigation has confirmed that this is not a 2026 phenomenon. Sources with knowledge of prior seasons report that last year's CCW season got off to a nearly identical start, with several early-season Wednesdays wiped out by rain before the league found its rhythm. This is a pattern that predates the current roster construction. It predates the Ligers' expansion. It may, in fact, be older than the Dirtyard itself.

What does this tell us? It tells us that whatever is doing this has been doing it for years. It is patient. It is strategic. It is playing a long game.

The league has survived. The league has adapted. The league continues to schedule Wednesdays with an optimism that I find both admirable and slightly heartbreaking. But the enemy is consistent, and consistency demands respect.

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CONCLUSION: WHAT MUST BE DONE

I do not have all the answers. No one does — not the National Weather Service, not the meteorologists at WTHR who deliver bad news with an enthusiasm that I find suspicious, not the astrologers, not the people responsible for the Omega Block who could have scheduled it one day earlier and chose not to.

What I have are questions, and questions are the currency of investigative journalism.

Why does the rain know the CCW schedule? Why does it arrive Tuesday and depart Thursday? Why did the Indy 500 — with its 60% rain forecast, its 300,000 attendees, its international media presence — get cooperative weather while the Dirtyard gets "a stalled boundary swiveling across central Indiana"? Who or what is operating the Tuesday pipeline? And is the Omega Block, the great atmospheric stabilizer named for the last letter of the Greek alphabet, actually the universe's way of telling this league something?

I intend to find out. My investigation is ongoing. My sources are active. My rain boots are ready.

In the meantime, the CCW teams will show up on Wednesday. They will show up in wind, in cold, in whatever the cosmos decides to send. They will play a Jack Off if they have to. They will play through a stalled boundary if they have to. Because that is what this league does.

But I am watching. And I am taking notes. And the weather should know — I have sources everywhere, including, now, in the upper atmosphere.

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— Jorf Porsson's investigation is ongoing. No precipitation systems have been formally charged at this time. This article has been reviewed by Jorf Porsson and no one else, because no one else was available, and also because peer review slows down the news cycle.

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