West Virginia manager Steve Sabins, pictured during a WVU batting practice this season.

MORGANTOWN — There is no such thing as a good loss.

Or is there?

How many times have heard players make the simple statement: “Losing sucks.”

They mean it, too. But there’s more to it than just a loss.

There’s no doubt that there was no celebration on the West Virginia baseball team’s trip home from State College, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night after losing, 3-2, to Penn State, putting an end to the 14-game winning streak they had constructed on their way to a No. 17 ranking this season.

But, if there is such a thing as a good loss, maybe this was it.

Philosophers — and the really good coaches often include this in their kind of philosophy — have forever argued that there is value in defeat.

The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, never saw a baseball or football game, having lived out his life in the early and mid-1800s, but he understood the value that can be found in losing.

“Mostly it is a loss which teaches us about the worth of things,” he wrote in Parerga and Paralipomena.

It just as easily could have been written by Earl Weaver or Jim Leyland, two major league managers who simply hated losing but understood that they are part of baseball life.

Steve Sabins, West Virginia’s baseball coach, probably has never heard of Schopenhauer, but his philosophy does not differ much.

He understood that the loss was just another day at the ballpark, that his team had played hard and considering that group already reeled off a 14-game win streak and a 13-game win streak in the same season to sit at 34-5 overall, it well may have been for the best.

It was, after all, a non-conference game, so it did not hurt the Mountaineers in the Big 12 standings and whatever seed they may get when tournament time comes around.

He understood also that a winning streak, just like a losing streak, can build pressure as it goes on. No one wants nine losses in a row to become 10, just as no one wants to see a 14-game winning streak become a one-game losing streak.

There was a time earlier this year when Sabins spoke of understanding just what you had accomplished along the way and enjoying it, rather than carrying it on as a burden.

“At some point,” he said after sweeping three games at Houston, “you have to feel joy in what you are doing. If you don’t, you don’t find joy in your daily life. “They need to reflect, maybe once a week, and say ‘We played a helluva series and we won and winning is hard as hell.'”

To Sabins, there’s a process to winning. It isn’t just talent going on the field and performing.

“We’re not winning games just because we’re good or more talented,” he said. “You win more games because you prepare better and are fresher and play with an aggressiveness and have a chip on your shoulder.”

It’s the process.

Losing at Penn State didn’t show a lack of preparation or a crack in the process.

“Sometimes there are things that are out of your control,” Sabins noted.

Sometimes the other team just plays better than you. Sometimes that fly ball that travels over the fence 365 feet away only travels 364 feet and is caught. You can’t control the wind. You can’t control the opposition’s defense.

Once you find what you believe in, you follow it.

“I don’t think you ever change whether you are winning or getting your butt kicked,” he said. “You have to have a process in place which you believe is the rig way to do things and follow it on a daily basis.”

The idea is to play to win. Period.

“You have to play to win, always,” he said. “I demand from myself and from the players. Every player has to play to win. Every coach has to coach to win.”

But you accept the results.

After the sixth game of the 1975 World Series, no less a competitor than Pete Rose, with World Championship at stake until Carlton Fisk’s home run in extra innings sent the Series to a seventh game, turned to Joe Morgan as the two were walking to the team bus and said “Wasn’t that a great game? Aren’t we lucky? Is there anything you’d rather be doing than this?”

He was not deterred by the result, spent the night resting, prepared the next day and was ready to go that night and won the world title.

That’s how you handle it. You study the loss, what you did, what was right, what was wrong. What could you have controlled that you didn’t? Did you get enough sleep, eat well going into the game, and have your mind in the right place?

If not, how can you fix it?

A loss, the philosopher said, isn’t a loss at all, just part of the learning process.

The manager seconds that opinion.