Harvard Coach Joe Walsh knows that the Crimson’s brand of baseball doesn’t work all that well when the team falls behind early.

So when Boston College jumped out to a 2-0 lead after its first two at-bats yesterday, it was not a good sign for Harvard’s struggling offense.

BC clubbed four homers—including a pair of two-run blasts—and Eagles freshman Joseph Martinez became the latest rookie pitcher to confound the Crimson lineup as BC (21-13, 10-4 Big East) rolled to a 12-3 win at O’Donnell Field.

The loss was the sixth for Harvard (8-18, 5-3 Ivy) in its last seven games.

“I’m really disappointed in our performance in weekday games, both this week and last week, against the local teams,” Walsh said. “It’s hard to find some positives.”

After replacing BC starter Paul Knapic in the fourth, Martinez shut the Crimson out for five innings.. He gave up just three hits and one walk to Harvard’s hitters, who were held scoreless for six innings by Northeastern freshman Matt Piryk in the Beanpot on Tuesday.

Harvard is batting just .243 as a team this season.

“We seem to get behind early and it takes away the chance to hit-and-run, steal bases and do all the little things we’re capable of doing well,” Walsh said. “When [BC] comes out and—boom—hits two two-run homers in the first three innings, we’ve got to play station-to-station. And when the team’s not hitting well, it’s tough to play that way.”

Harvard freshman Rob Wheeler fell behind in the count too many times in his first career start and the Eagles made him pay. After walking shortstop Ryan Morgan to start the game, Wheeler gave up a two-run homer to the Eagles’ No. 2 hitter, centerfielder Drew Locke.

Wheeler (0-1) gave up another run on two hits in the second inning before surrendering BC’s second two-run bomb of the game in the third. That homer, off the bat of leftfielder Brian Durkin, put the Eagles ahead 5-1.

“They hit a lot of fastballs off us,” Walsh said. “Wheeler got into a lot of fastball counts, 2-0 and 3-1.”

That forced Wheeler to challenge the Eagle hitters, something Harvard didn’t want to do. BC entered yesterday’s game with 32 homers on the season. Harvard has five.

“BC is a really good fastball-hitting team, so we knew that we’d need to keep them off-balance to be successful,” said sophomore pitcher Jason Brown, who relieved Wheeler to start the fourth. “We were looking to mix in some curveballs and changeups.”

Brown got a taste of BC’s power right away yesterday, as Eagles second baseman Jeff DiScipio led off the fourth with a solo homer. The shot negated the run Harvard had gotten back on a Mark Mager RBI single in the third.

“It was just tough luck. I was ahead in the count and made a good pitch on the outside part of the plate and he got it. I didn’t think it was going to leave,” Brown said.