Hawk & DJ's baseball blog

The Sox start playing games today so the road to repeating is underway. The key here is Ozzie. He's going to be the one guy who won't let these guys get too high or try to do too much. Ozzie will keep that good balance. He's got a coaching staff he loves and works well, so I think he'll be the key to being able to keep the Sox loose, happy, and focusing on baseball, not all the extra stuff that comes with being World Champions. As everybody knows, it is tough to repeat, but we've made some improvements and a second win could be on the horizon.

How do the players handle themselves? It's an individual thing and these guys are going to take it upon themselves, no matter what a coach or the manager says, and focus on baseball exactly the way they did last year - get their individual jobs done and come together collectively. That's how you win. It will be hard to do, because they are going to be bombarded with what happened last year. You have to find the balance between enjoying the success of last year and focusing on doing it again.

It's scary to think about how good our pitching was last year and then realize we have the chance to have an even stronger staff this year. The makeup of our staff, the way they're built and think is anchored by their competitiveness. Mark Buehrle wants to do better. Jon Garland wants to be better than Buehrle and better than he was last year. Jose Contreras finally showed us all the talent we need he had and became one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. Javier Vasquez is ready to jump right into the fray and no one will forget about Brandon McCarthy. It's a great mix of talent and experience and I think we'll be as strong, if not even stronger on the hill than we were last year.

DJ