To be fair, college baseball is just set up strangely. It's necessary (because school), but it is just goofy.
- You're gonna play these weekend series and also a bunch of single midweek games.
- Some of your midweek games will be one-offs, some will be a two game series, and every once in a while you'll have a three game series (spread over the course of these season obviously).
- Sometimes you'll have 2 midweek games, but never against the same team back to back.
- Oh, and sometimes you're gonna have a 4 game weekend series.
- All of you conference games will be 3 game weekend series though.
- You're gonna have a conference tourny and it's all gonna be jammed into 6 days. You could end up playing 5 games in 6 days.
- After that, if you make it, you'll be in a 4 team double elimination tourny that will be 3-4 days.
- We aren't used to going past here, so I'll stop here for now
Obviously all games "matter" in the sense that they count towards your record. However, your conference games seed you for your conference tournament. Does your conference tournament matter? Maybe?Depends? Conference games typically "mean" the most when it comes to your resume. This is true whether you're in a strong conference or not.
That doesn't mean you aren't trying to win the midweeks. That doesn't mean you can lose all your midweeks and it won't hurt you when it comes to seeding. However, when it comes to prioritizing games, the midweeks come in last. Because of that, especially in the early part of the season, you're gonna see teams experimenting with lineups, giving guys the day off, going into games with a certain goal (other than winning), etc. And then of course you're not typically seeing the best pitching for either team. Again, you can go back and reread the first two sentences of this paragraph (if you call it that). Nobody wants to lose. However, it's nearly impossible NOT to look at midweeks differently than weekend games.
Baseball is a funny game. You can hit the crap out of the ball, but if it's right at somebody it's an out. You can barely get a piece of a ball and bloop it over the infield for a hit. You can stand there and see three straight nasty pitches for strikes or you can stand there and see four that aren't even close. So many outcomes. A midweek game is a single one-off game. Even if you're playing the same team the next week or two more times later in the season. They give that vibe of anybody can win a single game on a single night. That's just the nature of baseball.
I'm not a big fan of the midweek aspect of college baseball, BUT it is a necessary part of the game. It's kind of like you have two different seasons going on within the one season. The games count, but for all the reasons above, they are just kind of "different." They don't "not matter," but I don't know how you can't say they matter less. If midweek losses add up of course they become a bigger deal, but a midweek loss here and there isn't going to kill you - even if it is a "sweep" by a lesser in state program. College baseball is all about taking care of the weekends. Just win enough midweeks to where they don't really matter.
- Annnnnnd just like that, I fell for the trap again
