These days, it might be more satisfying for some Seattle baseball fans to follow the team at Montlake than the one at SoDo.
And two Tri-City products are the brightest stars for the University of Washington, which opens a critical three-game series tonight at No. 3-ranked Arizona State (41-9 overall, 12-6 in the Pac-10).
The Huskies (31-17, 10-8) are third in the conference standings, thanks in large part to Pasco product Jorden Merry (8-0), whose 2.31 ERA leads the Pac-10. The junior right-hander starts tonight vs. the conference-leading Sun Devils.
And then there’s Richland grad Kyle Conley, who has been named the Pac-10 player of the week for each of the past two weeks. The redshirt sophomore is batting .342 with 16 homers and 52 RBI.
Some may recall that ASU head coach Pat Murphy managed the Tri-City Triplets in 1985. Murphy, who is 49 now, was the youngest manager in professional baseball 23 season ago.
Neither Conley nor Merry had been born yet.