The Terrapins baseball team’s biggest hazard this season may not be any one team or one opposing player. Lately, Terps opponents have needed all of one inning to put games out of reach.

In the nightcap of a Friday doubleheader at Boston College, right-hander Brett Harman allowed a second-inning grand slam that put the Terps in an early 4-1 hole. Boston College didn’t score again until a 12th-inning single plated the game-winning run in a 5-4 Eagles win.

A similar scenario arose earlier Friday. After the Terps took a 1-0 lead in the first, the Eagles responded with five runs off right-hander Brady Kirkpatrick as they went on to win, 10-3.

For coach Erik Bakich, it’s not a question of what opponents are doing to get to his players. It’s simply a reflection of what the Terps are doing.

Or not doing.

“The other teams aren’t really doing anything,” Bakich said. “It’s a matter of us being able to overcome some adversity and being able to take a punch and not let an inning get away from us.”

Tonight against George Mason (18-11), the Terps return to two environments where they have been successful this season: the confines of Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium, where they boast a 9-2 record, and nonconference play, where the Terps are 15-2.

But if the Terps want to return to the form that saw them start 11-1 and ranked nationally, they will need to limit opponents’ big innings. And if they can’t, they’ll need to respond in turn.

During the Terps’ best start to a season since 1968, the most runs Terps pitchers allowed in an inning was two. That happened just four times in 12 games.

Since a March 7 win over Navy, though, the Terps (18-11) have allowed three or more runs in 13 innings, and are 7-10 over that span. Their offense has been similarly unable to produce equivalent answers, scoring runs only four times in the frame immediately following those 13 big innings.

“If there is an error, if there is a walk or a hit or a hit by pitch, being able to shut it down and not let multiple things pile on and add up,” Bakich said Saturday, after his team’s series-ending win over Boston College. “Then you get crooked numbers scored against you.”

One of the Terps’ early-season calling cards – late-inning heroics – has also seemed to all but disappear in the past month. Since ACC play began, the Terps have only one come-from-behind victory, a 6-4 win at Miami on March 25. The Terps came back in five of their 11 wins to start the year, including victories over No. 5 UCLA and No. 20 Purdue.

“Our pitching staff’s been a bright spot the whole year,” Bakich said. “It’s more of the offense needing to clutch up and be more competitive throughout the entire lineup.”

The Terps’ offense ranks last in the ACC in batting average and on-base percentage, and second to last in slugging percentage. At the beginning of the season, that was enough for the pitching staff, but since running into more powerful offenses in ACC play, it hasn’t been. In 12 conference games, the Terps have had only three innings in which they scored three runs or more.

If the Terps can mount leads, it should be enough for a pitching staff featuring Harman and closer Jimmy Reed, two of the conference’s top pitchers this year. The staff as a whole ranks second in the ACC with a 2.91 ERA and is backed by a defense with a .972 fielding percentage, the third-best mark in the conference.

“I’ve been put in tight situations like that before,” Reed said in February. “You just got to use your routine. Take it slow. Focus on your breathing, and you’ll be fine.”

As the Terps look to rebound from a slow ACC start today against George Mason, that could be needed advice.

dgallen@umdbk.com