The last thing a young ballplayer wants to do when given a cup of coffee at the MLB level is spill it.  So when San Francisco Giant rookie 2B Kevin Frandsen stepped into the batting cage before a game between the Giants and the Milwaukee Brewers this evening, the last thing he probably expected to do was spill his first MLB cup of coffee before the game even started.

Alas, nearly as soon as young Frandsen started taking his BP hacks, his promptly spilled his aforementioned cup of coffee.  All over Barry Bonds.

The man with 712 career MLB home runs was struck on the forehead by the rookie 2B with 0 MLB home runs when one of Frandsen's BP hacks sent a foul ball into the netting of the batting cage and, simultaneously, into the forehead of the guy two swings away from tying George Herman Ruth on the All-time Home Run list.

Although Bonds was not seriously hurt and appeared unaffected enough to take his regular turn of BP after the incident, the same likely cannot be said for Frandsen, who was called up from Triple-A Fresno just five days ago.  So far, it has been a rough week for the rookie.  Although he rapped out three hits in his MLB debut against Arizona last Friday, he has had a succession of bizarre happenings ever since.

On Saturday, he went 0-for-3 and committed the cardinal sin for all MLB rookies by not running out a routine infield pop up which was eventually dropped and turned into a double play because the rookie was not running to first on the play.

On Sunday, he was hit by his third pitch in as many games and became part of another bizarre double play when Bonds was called out on a check-swing third strike and Frandsen was thrown out at third on a botched steal attempt in which he failed to slide.

Yesterday included Frandsen's first MLB error, yet another HBP (his fourth such plunking in five games), and a pair of strikeouts.  I wonder if Mama Frandsen told him that there would be days like these.  If she did, even she probably wouldn't have predicted her son would follow all of that up by bouncing a foul ball off of the noggin of one of the game's greatest and most controversial players.

But keep your chin up, young Mr. Frandsen.  Five days of nothing but bad news can be followed up with nothing but ringing extra base hits and sparkling defensive plays.  Baseball is like that.  Good and bad can trade places in an instant and over 162 games there's a whole lot of time for each side of the coin to show itself.  And until regular 2B Ray Durham gets a balky hamstring to be not quite so balky, you still have a little time to keep whatever is left of your initial MLB cup of coffee in the cup.

Infielders will make errors, so don't sweat it unless they start to add up.  Getting hit by a pitch, while painful, is also a ticket to first base.  And the next time you hit a popup, put your head down and run your ass off.

And most importantly, make sure to tell Mr. Bonds to stay as FAR away from the batting cage as possible the next time you take BP, because the coffee is still very hot and you don't have that much of it left.