Redmond sophomores have Mustangs back on top

REDMOND — To Redmond sophomores Michael Conforto and Dylan Davis, it has become an unspoken phenomenon.

"We don't talk about it," Davis says. "We don't say anything."

To the parents and coaches who have watched them for more than five years, at hundreds of games on baseball fields around the country, what they see is more than a pattern.

It is a symbiotic relationship. One young slugger feeds off the other. For five years, playing together on teams at all different levels, they have batted back-to-back in the order.

They have slumped together, and gone on torrid tears together. And, with remarkable consistency, they have followed one home run with another.

"There's something special there," Redmond coach Dan Pudwill says. "It's almost like when one guys hits a home run, the other's responding."

The first to notice the trend were Conforto and Davis' dads, who had seen the boys — who are tied for the KingCo 4A lead with six home runs each — go back-to-back too often to ignore.

"A number of times," says Pat Davis. "They've been best friends, but there's that little bit in each of them that they want one more than the other. I'm sure if you went back over all the books and counted their home runs, they'd be just about even."

Last month, in an important game between KingCo 4A division leaders, the sophomores did it again.

The Mustangs trailed Lake Washington 6-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning when Davis knocked a hanging, 0-2 curveball over the Hartman Park fence for a two-run home run.

Lake Washington brought in a relief pitcher, and on the first pitch, Conforto hit a towering shot well beyond the right-center-field fence — "Some of the balls that Michael has hit over the fence are astronomical," Pudwill says — that tied the score at 6. Redmond went on to score in the bottom of the seventh for the fifth victory in what has become a nine-game win streak.

"After the game," Conforto's dad, Mike Conforto Sr., says, "Michael said that once Dylan hit his, it just sort of pumped him up."

Aside from leading in home runs, the two are in the top five in KingCo 4A in slugging percentage for seventh-ranked Redmond, which has already clinched the KingCo Crest Division title and opens the league tournament Saturday.

Such a lofty season was far from expected for Redmond last spring, when 14 seniors left after winning the regular-season league championship.

But with only four seniors returning, it opened the door for a group of talented young players. In addition to Davis and Conforto, junior Josh Bircher has one of the league's best on-base percentages and sophomore Zach Abruzza might be the top prospect of them all. Davis, who also pitches, became the staff ace and is 6-0 with a 1.41 earned-run average.

"They were all welcomed with open arms," Pudwill says.

Pudwill kept Conforto and Davis together in the lineup, where they have been since Conforto joined Davis' select team five years ago. That was right after Conforto — the son of Tracy Ruiz-Conforto, former Olympic gold-medal synchronized swimmer — played on the Redmond North team that went to the Little League World Series.

"It's like we're brothers," Davis says, and through hundreds of games played on school and select teams, they have developed a sibling's sense of what the other is going to do next.

"Sometimes," Conforto says, "I can just feel when Dylan's going to get a hit."

"And I can just see it," Davis says. "That look he gets, and you know he's going to hit a home run."

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com