So, can I interest you in BC baseball?

Of course I can. After all, there won’t be any BC hockey until Friday and any legitimate BC basketball excitement came to an end the second Clemson took the court, what else do we have?

Now, if you were to look at what 2011 Eagles baseball has done so far in its first 14 games, you would most likely think that this team is streaky — and you would be correct (though the quality of their opposition also has a lot to do with it). Boston College has gone, in win/loss streak terms, L1, W2, L3, W4, and L4. With the last three of those games being a three-game sweep at the hands of #5 Florida State (and BC had leads in two of those games), BC has fallen to 6-8 (0-3) and are not off to a flashy start. For purposes of comparison, however, the Eagles were 6-8 (1-2) at this point, so it’s not like they’re that far behind last year’s pace.

Coming into the 2011 season, the Eagles lost two big bats in All-American Mickey Wiswall and John Spatola. So far, the BC offense has experienced a real power outage: in 14 games, they have hit three home runs as a team and are slugging .354. Furthermore, team OPS is .718. Those aren’t very good numbers, but they’re complicated (as is often the case) by flaws in the pitching.

The Eagles’ starting pitching, generally speaking, has not been bad so far, especially considering that BC has been without one of their better pitchers (Taylor Lasko). Mike Dennhardt, one of the more veteran presences on the staff this season, has had a disappointing start with a 5.89 ERA (though he had a 7.22 ERA for the 2010 season, so believe it or not, this is an improvement), but other regular starters John Leonard, Eric Stevens, and Nate Bayuk have had reasonable performances so far. The standout of this group early on in the season is Leonard, who is pitching to a 3.08 ERA and has only let the league hit .234 off of him. These guys aren’t the problem, however: it’s the bullpen.

This, of course, is nothing new for fans of Boston College baseball, but so far we’ve had some real head-scratchers out of this bunch. No performance through 14 games is as puzzling as that of Matt Brazis, who was BC’s closer. Brazis was a highly-reliable arm for Mik Aoki last year with a 4.73 ERA and 9 saves, but for Mike Gambino, it has not been so. He has saved one game but pitched to a 9.53 ERA in six appearances. Dave Laufer and Dane Clemens, two arms BC will need in that bullpen this year, have both also gotten shelled.

If you’re a bottom-line kind of person, then here it is: BC’s 6-8 record so far can be easily explained by the fact that their opponents are outhitting them and outpitching them. It really doesn’t get any more simple than that. So, how does BC turn it around? They can start by beating Bryant tomorrow and getting contributions from some of their remaining veteran hitters like Anthony Melchionda, Matt Hamlet, and all the rest. If the bullpen cooperates, then that’s just gravy.