Danforth’s quick work a plus for Milford baseball

While the Milford High School baseball team might be familiar with each other, the Spartans coach is still learning a lot about his players.

Milford had seven players in its lineup Thursday at Windham who saw varsity action last season, but first-year coach Steve Claire has only seen those players in action a handful of times this spring.

That includes Logan Danforth, who got the start for the Spartans (0-2 in Division II) in a 3-1 loss to the Jaguars. When Claire first saw the senior pitch, he had to step in and ask Danforth a question.

“I’m starting to get to know these guys as players, especially during games, and I saw him warming up last week,” Claire said. “I stopped him and said ‘is this how fast you normally go?’ He said he always does that.”

Thursday’s game lasted just one hour, 26 minutes, and part of that can be attributed to Windham’s Adam Dolan limiting Milford to four hits and seven total base runners. But a lot of it was Danforth, who doesn’t hesitate long in between pitches.

“Take your time, but maybe one guy called timeout,” Windham coach Derek Lee said of how he wanted his players to try to slow the game down. “Milford’s strength is their two good starting pitchers. We saw one of them (Thursday).”

Danforth pitched well enough to win, going six innings and allowing two earned runs on six hits and four walks with two strikeouts. Despite throwing over a hundred pitches, Danforth never seemed to tire and Claire never had anyone else warm up.

“He’s a workhorse,” Claire said. “He’s got a great attitude when he’s on the mound and he’s got a great attitude when he’s in the field. He’s a fun kid to coach. Coming from a former infielder, I would like to be out there when he’s pitching.”

Milford retakes the field on Monday when it heads to St. Thomas.