The Sox lost their first exhibition game of the spring, 7-3 to the defending NL champion Colorado Rockies yesterday afternoon, marking the 11^th straight time the Sox have fallen to their spring rivals in Tucson. But manager Ozzie Guillen was pleased with his team’s more intense style.

Be careful, Ozzie: all this effort and intensity in a February exhibition game against Rockies’ minor leaguers could rob the Sox of much more important vigor in August, when real baseball games are being played.

I know Ozzie thinks he is making a “statement” by denying free passes to his superstars by playing all out in February, and that last year’s malaise was caused in large part by a lack of focus in spring. But those are just the actions of a man in denial about how bad his 2007 squad was, and about how unimportant spring statistics and results are.

I am not in favor of spring battles at all, be they for starting rotation spots or starting position spots, because there are so many outside factors affecting spring performance and so little correlation between spring stats and regular season production. Full season minor league stats are much better indicators of how 2008 will go.

For the veterans like Jim Thome and Paul Konerko, the most important parts of spring training are taking some BP to get their timing, losing a few pounds to get in playing shape and avoiding injury. Rounding second base hard against some Double-A foe or orchestrating a late inning comeback against a guy who’ll be bagging groceries in two weeks isn’t going to make any difference.

In fact all it does is increase the chance for injuries. Just ask Jerry Owens, who did his best Scott Podsednik impersonation by pulling his groin before Cactus League play even began.

At some point the entire Sox organization has to realize 2007’s failures came as a result of bad baseball players, not some fuzzy lack of heart or hustle. Andy Gonzalez can give 110% and he still wouldn’t be 50% of Nick Swisher. Konerko, miscast as a “captain” anyway, can be as vocal and demonstrative as Carl Everett—it’s not going to earn him another point of batting average. Podsednik and Darin Erstad can walk with all the swagger of Flavor Flav, their injuries won’t be any less severe.

Ultimately, the Sox play will speak for itself in 2008. If the upgrades of Swisher, Orlando Cabrera and Carlos Quentin are significant enough, the offense will produce. If they’re not talented enough, all the hustle and swagger in the world won’t win the Sox any division titles.

And as much as Ozzie doesn’t want to admit it, there’s not much he can do in spring training to appreciably change that, intensity be damned.