A friendly reminder that spring training games don’t matter

The Diamondbacks will play their first exhibition game of the season today against the University of Arizona. Tomorrow, they will face the Rockies in their first true spring training game of the season.

It’ll be great to finally see baseball again. But don’t get too worked up about the final results.

These are just exhibition games. They don’t count for anything, and oftentimes their results can be meaningless. Last year, the Oakland A’s had MLB’s best spring record at 22-11 and the Texas Rangers had the worst at 9-19. The Rangers won the AL West and the A’s had the worst record in the American League. Moreover, Eduardo Escobar led the AL in RBI while Mark Trumbo led the NL. Escobar had just 58 RBI last season. Trumbo performed so poorly with the Diamondbacks that he was traded before the end of May. I doubt anyone remembers any of these things from last spring.

Seriously, aside from Randy Johnson killing the bird, can you even remember one memorable moment from a spring training game? Like when six Red Sox pitchers combined to throw a perfect game in 2000? Nope?

Neither does anyone. In fact Rod Beck, who recorded the game’s final out, did not even know that a perfect game had taken place until after it was over. Many fans left the ballpark before the final out, not even knowing a perfect game was in tact. Of the 24 (including this one) perfect games in baseball history, this was by far the least meaningful or memorable.

Bottom line: If Paul Goldschmidt bats .200 or the Diamondbacks lose seven straight, don’t get too low. If Brandon Drury bats .456 and hits eight home runs in 20 games, don’t get too high. None of these games matter. It’s just going to be fun to see baseball again.