There isn't a Players' Manager Manifesto that details exactly how to be a players' manager. It's not as simple as "if x, then y." I'd wager that every player has a different personality that needs to be massaged in a unique way. Which means that for a struggling pitcher, there are a lot of different ways a manager thinks he can help. The two main strategies:

• Protect the pitcher. Don't let him get in over his head. When he has modest success, let him take that to the clubhouse and build on it. Pull him earlier than you normally would, even when he's doing well.
• Trust the pitcher. Show him how much trust you have in him. Let him work through his problems.

You know what the right answer was for tonight because you watched it. You saw the collapse. You saw the meltdown, the unfortunateness, the puddle of stringy black hair and sweaty goo. But that doesn't mean there wasn't thought behind Bochy's decision to leave Lincecum in for the sixth inning. Because what's Lincecum's problem this year? Other than being a bad pitcher, I mean. When he gets in trouble, gets in the stretch, the walls crumble around him. Tony Gwynn, Jr. hits an 0-2 pitch down the line; Chris Coghlan turns on a pitch for the first time in his life.

Is that how you spell Coghlan? Screw it, I'm never typing his name again. I'm not looking it up, and if it's wrong, it stays.

And in the first five innings, Lincecum had a couple of furry situations. He pitched out of them. His only blemish was a home run to Giancarlo Stanton, but I think at this point, pitchers give those up for shits and giggles because we all want to see them. A solo home run through five innings. A little trouble, but nothing that Lincecum couldn't handle. So you can almost see the logic. Some players need a cortisone shot to the knee; Lincecum needed a confidence shot to the melon. One more inning, and he was golden. Even after things starting going south, all Lincecum needed was one more out for a quality start.

Then there was a home run, and the universe collapsed upon itself.

Now you'll get factions. We were legion! when it came to Lincecum just a few months ago. Now you'll get the Timmy is Broken crowd breaking beer bottles and going after the Timmy is Fine He Just Needs to Figure Some Things Out crowd. This will escalate quickly.

It's unfortunate that we're here. Brother against brother. But I'm going to have to come down on the side of the homers and fanboys here. I still believe. Anyone mentioning the name "Brad Penny" gets pepper spray in the mouth.

That isn't to say that I'm not concerned. Good god, of course I am. We're ten starts in. From Mark Gardner to Todd Wellemeyer, when a pitcher goes a third of the season and is this awful, usually the torchforks are out. Lincecum has a pedigree, so he gets some leeway. As he should. But it's not like I'm going to smoke a cigarette on the deck with FIP and relax, knowing that things are going to get better. This is weird.

If there's a positive from this game, it's that Lincecum can still get the crap knocked out of him even when he has his best fastball. That's actually a positive. It's one less conspiracy theory to deal with. Lincecum's fastball was jumping, and it was moving. Hitters couldn't just sit on his offspeed stuff. But he still didn't get away with anything. When he hung an 0-1 curve to one of the slumpiest hitters in the game, it was hit out of one of the toughest home-run parks in the majors. Worst pitch at the worst time. Of course it's going to mess up Tim Lincecum.

With the velocity goblin knocked down a rung in the Worry Rankings, the remaining contenders are "health", "control/mechanics", and "head." Not worried about the health after the 93/94 he was flashing tonight. So it's control/mechanics or head. Maybe both! Maybe neither. It's like I know enough to pick. But I'm going control/mechanics. I didn't hear the snap between August 27, 2010 and September 1, 2010 -- the mechanical sproing of the gears sliding into place. But it happened. This is the same thing, just twice as long. This is the same thing, just twice as long. This is the same thing, just twice as long.

You might be in the Timmy is Broken faction, shaking your head at those words. To which, I say good day. I SAID GOOD DAY.

…

But, yeah, you might be right.

Lineup, via CSN Bay Area:

RF Gregor Blanco
SS Brandon Crawford
LF Melky Cabrera
C Buster Posey
CF Angel Pagan
1B Aubrey Huff
3B Joaquin Arias
2B Ryan Theriot
P Tim Lincecum

Trading for Angel Pagan made sense at the time. Once you got over the shock that you had another man's face tattooed on your ass, and that man now played for the Mets, you could see the logic in trading some defense for a younger version of Andres Torres.

One of the unspoken benefits of the trade is that it cleared the way for Gary Brown. There was going to be this uncomfortable moment in 2013 when you realized that Gary Brown was ready, but Torres was still around, and you were going to rely on Bruce Bochy to make that seamless transition from veteran to rookie with which he excels. With Pagan being a free agent after this season, there isn't going to be that problem. Brown can just take the job and lead off for the next dec…

Dammit so much.

So it looks like Brown is something of a project, and those thoughts of him leading the Giants in 2013 were a little premature. The Eastern League is the trapdoor spider of the minor leagues. The Cal League is a cool jungle night, and the major leagues are a pile of delicious rotting fruit, and all you want to do is go from one side to the other. Next thing you know, your thorax is being chewed by something bigger than you. Fun while it lasted.

And in 2013, the Giants will need a center fielder. Gregor Blanco seems to be a nice fallback plan, but where once Angel Pagan being around for a single year seemed like it's a good thing, now it's kind of a bummer. His defense can get a little benardian at times, but he's still a useful player, even in a down year like 2011. When he's having a good year, he's fun to watch -- .349/.402/.422 in May, with eight walks and no homers, which seems to be more reasonable. It was kind of freaky when he homered in three straight games.

The same thing applies with Pagan that applies with Cabrera: wait. Now is not the time. If you pay now, you're including a hot-month premium -- that's going to cost a couple million, at least -- and that's never a good idea.

Pagan is a lot more interesting as a potential extension candidate now, though, than he was before the season started. Brown isn't going to be ready, most likely, so the Giants will need a short-term fix. A two-year deal doesn't seem too outlandish for Pagan, nor does he seem like the type to get a three-year commitment from another team. I could even see a situation where the market falls out from under him like Cody Ross last offseason, and he takes a one-year deal.

Not saying it's a good idea to extend him yet. But it's not a bad idea to start thinking about it. Two years, $11 million? If he hits .290/.340/.451 for the rest of the season, that's not bloody likely. But it's a good start if you're looking for something to get used to.

Pagan was a clear one-and-done before the season started. Not so sure about that now.

Thursday highlights from the Giants' farm: both Justin Christian and Eli Whiteside homered among three hits, and Eric Hacker allowed just 1 ER in 7.0 IP.

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When the Giants went down in order during the National Anthem, the only ball hit with any authority was Melky Cabrera's fly ball. It wasn't exactly crushed, but he got a good swing on it. It went about 350 feet -- about half the distance need to hit a ball out to right-center. I, along with about two-thirds of the TV audience, mumbled "I got a bad feeling about this."

Not because the Giants have been moribund offensively over the past two weeks. They've earned at least a little confidence with their improved play. But Anibal Sanchez and a park that can fit six Petco Parks and four Hard Rock Cafes in the outfield seemed like a bad combination. That's like a booby trap in the jungle. One second the Giants are bebopping along, scoring runs like an average team, and the next they're swinging from a net in a tree top. Also, grounding out.

But big parks don't necessarily suppress runs. And after the Giants scored a dozen-plus runs, it's not too crazy to think this is the perfect park for the Giants. Vast green fields for baseballs to drop in and roll around. For a team that can put the ball in play, this park isn't a bad thing at all. They don't have too many guys who can hit the ball 400 feet, so why should they care if they don't have any who can hit them 425?

Now I'm pining for the vast, green pastures of Miami. Maybe there's a way to move the fences back at AT&T Park. Put some landfill in the bay -- sorry, hippies and fish, but there are games to win. Push those babies way back. Our guys can strike the other team out, and their guys can allow hit after hit after hit. Melky Cabrera would hit .450. Buster Posey would hit .899. It would be glorious.

But then again, the Giants already have a .387 OBP at the top of the order, a #3 guy hitting .362/.409/.519, a cleanup hitter with a .306/.373/.486 line, and their best hitter isn't even on the roster right now. Maybe I don't need to worry about ways to get the Giants a little extra help. Maybe this is some It's a Wonderful Life crap, and we're learning the offense is just fine the way it is, regardless where they're playing. That's a weird feeling. And every time you hear a bell ring, Albert Pujols grounds out.

In the fifth inning, Ryan Vogelsong was scuffling. An infield hit and two walks. The last walk loaded the bases for Giancarlo Stanton, who changed weather patterns with a home run in his last at-bat. The at-bat to Stanton went like this:

• fastball to the outside, well-placed
• slider low and away
• fastball over the outer-half of the plate, popped up

Vogelsong got out of the inning unscathed. Because he didn't melt down, his ERA is still 2.50. He gets credit for the win, and he gets the hosannas. I don't know what those are, but he can at least be polite and pretend to like them.

Lincecum -- at least the one from the first two months of this season -- would have allowed a triple and a wild pitch, possibly on the same play. This is because he's pressing too much, or he doesn't have the same confidence, or his fastball is shrinking.

But baseball isn't just about the pitcher on the mound. And if Stanton were looking to go to the opposite field with the first pitch, or if his bat was centered about a half-inch more with the third pitch, this game turns out much differently. Vogelsong's night turns out much differently.

This isn't to say that Vogelsong got lucky, or that all of Lincecum's problems have to do with bad luck. Vogelsong does have some steel eggs on the mound -- the kind you earn with a few trips around the Pacific Coast League, Japan, and the operating table. And Lincecum's body language can give away a hint of premature defeat when he gets into trouble. But it's so, so easy to get caught up in results-based analysis. Vogelsong had a good game. Why? Well, he didn't give up that many runs, that's why. But if Stanton swung just a little differently in an at-bat that followed a couple walks, Vogelsong wouldn't have had a good game.

It's just weird. I don't even know where I'm going with this. It's almost impossible to evaluate players on a game-to-game basis. You can't crawl into the players' heads during a given at-bat and figure out who was really setting up the Vienna Gambit, and who was trying to unwrap the rook to see if there's chocolate underneath. Vogelsong walked Greg Dobbs to get to Giancarlo F. Stanton, yet he lived to be one of the heroes of the game. Lincecum gets to two outs, and then he can't retire Freddy Galvis's stunt double.

Of course, Clay Hensley and Jeremy Affeldt felt this was unfair, so they added a couple of runs to Vogelsong's total. But the point still stands.

We were supposed to be patient with the Giants' offense -- if they kept getting the runners on, eventually they wouldn't be so lousy with runners in scoring position. That patience was rewarded over the last week or two. Eventually Vogelsong will get burned after an inning like that. Which is fine. All pitchers have those innings, even the very good ones. But eventually, Lincecum won't get burned at every opportunity. That's the hope, anyway.

And while we're giggling that Melky Cabrera isn't Jonathan Sanchez, let's give a premature congratulations to Brian Sabean for the Ryan Vogelsong extension. He was going to be a free agent after this year, remember. There's still a lot of season left, and this paragraph can still look awfully stupid, but right now, it looks like a steal. Dude's fun to watch, even if only because he looks so irritated.

The Miami Marlins are empirically distasteful and everything that is wrong with America. This has been your Marlins series preview.

But there's always room to look back at an old friend. And this one even has Marlins ties. The tendrils root deep in this parasitic Marlins/Giants relationship. And before Armando Benitez was a Giant, he was a Marlin. He wasn't just some shlub in the Marlins' bullpen, either. He was an All-Star with a 1.29 ERA who got an MVP vote with the Marlins. The rest is ignominious history.

For a site that kinda sorta clings to the old-school Internet belief that closers are overrated, I sure spent a lot of time worrying about Benitez. Tons of time. I joke about the Jose Castillo Era, but Benitez was really the organizational metaphor. The only thing standing between the 2004 Giants and the promised land was a competent bullpen. The Giants spent too much on Benitez, and he came over a year too late. Everything fell apart. Bonds went on the DL. There were dark times. You could see the smoke from space.

And in a way, I honestly feel like he was the most important player in the development of this site. He was so frustrating that he was the inspiration for me to get Photoshop, teach myself some rudimentary things, and do things like this and this. He inspired a proto-LOLcat that could have made me millions if I had just thought to misspell the caption. He sent me on a quest to learn more about .gifs, which is still paying off today.

And, of course, he inspired Natto to create the greatest piece of art the Internet has ever seen:

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