Losers of six in a row, the Massachusetts baseball team will return to Earl Lorden Field this afternoon for a non-conference game with Bay State rival Boston College.

The Minutemen are coming off of a 7-3 loss to Quinnipiac in which they managed only a pair of infield singles against righthander Chris Gresh, and UMass coach Mike Stone is looking for his team to put together a more potent attack against the Eagles.

“We need to come out with a renewed sense of urgency and energy [today], and start swinging the bats like we’re capable of,” he said. “We need to be patient at the plate and get good pitches to hit, and when we do we can’t miss them.”

One thing the Maroon and White must do if it hopes to regain its offensive prowess is develop a rhythm at the plate, something they were not able to do against Gresh, who retired 20 of the final 21 batters he faced in Tuesday’s loss.

Leading the charge in that department will again be junior rightfielder Jason Twomley, who has been hitting leadoff of late, and senior shortstop and tri-captain Mike Athas, who collected one of the two hits off of Gresh with a bunt single and has been UMass’ most consistent hitter over the past two seasons.

“We need to start getting things going right from the top of the order,” Stone said. “We have guys who can put the ball in play and get on base, but it just wasn’t working like that for us [on Tuesday] and that needs to change if we want to be successful.”

An addition that should work to help cure UMass’ offensive ills is the return of senior infielder Cullan Maumus. An excellent handler of the bat in addition to being widely regarded as one of the Atlantic 10’s premier bunters, Maumus broke his hand when he was hit by a pitch earlier this season at George Washington.

Maumus has two hits in ten at-bats since returning to action in the first game of a doubleheader this past Saturday, and has also scored a pair of runs. He also collected the other hit off of Gresh on Tuesday, and could play a more substantial role in jumpstarting the Maroon and White’s offensive attack as he works his way back into midseason form.

On the other hand, while the offense was problematic for the Minutemen on Tuesday, the pitching staff that was lauded as the team’s greatest strength struggled mightily in a weekend sweep at the hands of Fordham.

Righthanders Eric Chown and Matt Torra were knocked around for four and sevens runs, respectively, on Saturday, while southpaw Keith Doherty was battered for seven earned runs in two-and-1/3 innings.

Because of this, Stone knows that while this afternoon’s contest is a non-conference affair, he needs to find an arm who can give him a quality outing and eat innings after freshman righthander Devin Barnett walked five and surrendered five runs in four in innings against Quinnipiac.

“[Barnett] wasn’t throwing strikes like he can, and we need our pitchers to do that,” Stone said. “We’re coming into the stretch drive here, and our pitchers need to be on top of their game and giving us the best chance to win.”