Today's workout (delayed by a morning meeting with officials from the players' union) has wrapped up. Couple of items worth mentioning...

Shawn Hill looked sharp once again, showing no signs of reason for anyone to be concerned about his right arm. His trademark sinker again had guys baffled, and not just the non-roster scrubs. No, the guys facing Hill today were Lastings Milledge, Wily Mo Pena and Elijah Dukes. None of them made solid contact, unless you consider a broken bat blooper to center by Milledge solid contact. "All right, we went 1-for-11!" Milledge exclaimed at the end of the round.

Also, Nick Johnson (along with other players) practiced sliding for the first time. I hate to reveal this, because Nick has looked so good in everything else he's done so far in camp, but he did not look comfortable at all on his three slide attempts into a mat along the right-field line. Now, Nick would be the first to tell you that even before he broke his leg, his sliding technique was far from perfect. (I've never seen anyone else who manages to get dirt on both the front and back of his uniform on the same slide!) But today's attempts were very awkward looking, and Nick was slow to get up from them and kind of limped a bit as he walked away.

"It went okay," he said. "It could have been better. I was never a good slider in the first place.
I think it will be a little better when game time comes, where I have to just get down there and do it. Just during a game, just go. I can't be thinking about it. If I think about it, then I will be a mess."

Fair enough. Let's see how he does in actual games starting tomorrow night before we rush to any judgments.

Finally, Baseball America has released its Top 100 Prospects list for 2008. Surprise, surprise: Three Nats farmhands have made the list. Chris Marrero ranks 27th, Ross Detwiler is 51st and Collin Balester is 86th. Only Balester (95th) was on the list last year, though then-Devil Ray Elijah Dukes was included as well at No. 79.