Have you noticed Lincecum has been struggling for the last year or so? About that …

I’ve wanted to make love to a lot of different pitches in my time. Like, a ton. You don’t want to browse through my Chrome history. Tonight’s unrequited love was the first pitch Tim Lincecum threw to Chase Utley in the first inning. It was 94, with movement that brought it back over the plate. Utley turned into the pitch, and it went right by him, back into the strike zone. It was an unambiguous strike. And it wasn’t anything a hitter would swing at.

It was pitching. Remember that? Pitching. It was throwing a baseball with a plan. The first pitch sets up the second pitch, which sets up the third and fourth pitch. Or maybe the first pitch sets up the next four pitches as a roundabout way to set up the strikeout pitch. Pitching. That first pitch felt like a pitch the masters would throw, something that Greg Maddux would watch through a monocle as he exclaimed, “Bully of a pitch!”

Then everything went to shit, as it often seems to do with the starting pitchers these days.

We’re a year and a month into the middling-to-bad Tim Lincecum, and at least there’s a sliver lining built in. Every time we watch him start a game, we could be thinking $126 million. I can’t believe they gave him the Zito. $126 million. Or $150 million. Or, man, who knows what kind of contract he could have nabbed if the Giants were desperate to lock him up. It would have been the highest contract ever given to an ex-pitcher.

Because Lincecum can’t pitch. He can only throw. And occasionally, the throwing will pass for pitching. It mimics pitching for a little bit, sort of like a kid standing on the shoulders of another kid under a big trench coat can mimic an adult wanting to see an X-rated movie. After a split-second of inspection, though, everything falls apart. The Utley pitch described above would mean something if Lincecum could do it again. It would mean something if he could do it half of the times he tried to. Heck, a quarter. Alas, he can’t. And that’s the problem.

Between 2011 and 2012, some intrepid scout came up with a scouting report on Tim Lincecum. It was more like an action plan, a way to crack the code of Tim Lincecum. It was written on an index card and passed around the league. All it read was this:

Treat every Tim Lincecum pitch like it’s a 3-1 count. Except for the two-strike pitches, which you pretend are full counts.

What do hitters do on a 3-1 count? They shouldn’t chase, for one. Even if the umpire jobs them on a call, they’ll get a 3-2 count. So they get to look for a specific part of the strike zone. Pick a quadrant. Pick a speed. Look for a hanger. The league hits .351/.690/.704 on 3-1 counts. They can sit on a pitch and look for curveballs that don’t curve, or sliders that don’t slide.

And that’s all hitters do against Lincecum. If he gets ahead 0-1, the hitter pretends it’s 3-1 and looks for a fastball down the middle. If Lincecum misses with the 0-1 pitch, the hitter can pretend it’s 3-1 and look for a fastball down the middle. If Lincecum gets that second strike, the hitter can back out, collect himself, and pretend that it’s a full count, looking for a fastball mistake, while also watching for an off-speed pitch that stays up.

I don’t remember the last hitter that looked uncomfortable against Lincecum. I’ve seen them strike out against him. I’ve seen hitters go down on nasty changeups that did what they were supposed to do. But on the way back to the dugout, the hitter isn’t thinking “How does anyone hit that?” He thinks, “Oh, yeah, great. I’m the guy he throws that to,” and then continues not looking uncomfortable in his at-bats against Tim Lincecum.

Did you notice how Kyle Kendrick was setting hitters up with front-door sinkers and putting them away with changeups? Or how he would hit the outside edge of the plate the pitch after Mike DiMuro gave him an extra inch? That’s pitching. It’s what Matt Cain did for years, and what Ryan Vogelsong did for the last two seasons. And it’s sure as heck something that Tim Lincecum used to do. He can’t anymore. I don’t know why. He probably doesn’t either.

Also, you can scratch “Yearns for Giants pitching to be more like Kyle Kendrick” off your bingo card. Also, if you actually have that on a bingo card in front of you, you are in Hell. Literally. You were a bad person, you died, and now you are in a warm place where you wish Giants pitchers can ape the sweet, sweet pitchability of Kyle Kendrick.

There’s no solution. Not until the deadline, at least. Clayton Blackburn isn’t going to ride in on a well-controlled horse, skipping two levels to save us all. Chris Heston probably isn’t the answer. Zack Wheeler is still retired, writing the Great American Novel, just like I’ve been telling myself for the last year. All we can do is hope Lincecum figures out how to pitch again. Hoping is fine. Recommended, even. But I’m not waiting for it anymore.

Crant Crisbee is away on modernity leave. How about that 8th spot in the batting order? We’re not even a quarter of the way into the season, so it’s really quite Bynesian to say that there’s…

Meanwhile, Tim Lincecum could not buy a break. The Giants couldn’t hit anything McCarthy was leaving out for them, and the Diamondbacks couldn’t help but crush every pitch Lincecum left over the plate. Target away? Pitch drifts back in and right across the plate. Target down and away? Pitch drifts up and back across the plate. Target up? Pitch doesn’t get high enough, stays right in the middle of the plate. The only time Lincecum “got away with one” was a fastball that was supposed to be up and away but was just low enough and in enough that it was a fat pitch. Thankfully, Miguel Montero swung through it.

Tim Lincecum did not walk a batter tonight. He gave up 10 hits, including 2 doubles and a home run but he did not walk a batter tonight. Per Andrew Baggarly, this was the first time in 60 starts where Lincecum did not allow a walk. Holy base on balls, bat man.

Hopefully, we’re all done with trying to figure out what’s wrong with Tim Lincecum. I know I am.

For Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants, it’s another Filipino Heritage Night, an homage to a fan base that represents the second largest Asian American group in the nation (Four million based on 2011 Census estimates, with Northern California the largest concentration of Filipino Americans outside of Hawaii).

And they all love Lincecum, whose mother was Filipino, making the Giants’ star the son of a great-granddaughter of a Filipino immigrant.

Lincecum is a 4^th generation Filipino American.

Far from an accidental, or the reluctant Filipino, Lincecum always seems interested when I’ve mentioned Filipino history to him. One of his recent starts actually was on Bataan Valor Day, the surrender of Bataan and the start of the death march.

After a recent game, when he struggled and gave up 7 walks, I asked him about superstitions since ballplayers, like Filipinos are notoriously superstitious. I thought this might get him to open up about being Filipino.

But any discussion of being Filipino always goes back to his mother.

He certainly doesn’t deny his “Filipino-ness.” But like many half-Filipino, or multi-racial Filipinos (21.8 percent of U.S. Filipinos), one’s  comfort level is based on a continued connection to family. Certainly, that’s a private matter–to a point. It’s just that when you take the mound on such a public stage as Major League Baseball, you lose some of that privacy. Filipinos see a game where there are zero Filipinos on the field. And when someone like Lincecum comes along, naturally, he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a kind of global hero to Filipinos everywhere. Sports and identity politics go together.

Just like Venezuelans love Sandoval, Scutaro and Blanco, Filipinos love Lincecum.

Lincecum isn’t pitching tonight. The starter is Matt Cain, not even 1/32nd Filipino, but still beloved by Giants fans.

Lincecum might make a cameo as he did on what I believe was the very first Filipino American Heritage night in 2009. The coincidence of Manny Pacquiao promoting his fight with Ricky Hatton made it practically a community event.

When pound-for-pound champ Pacman threw the ceremonial first pitch to a catcher named Lincecum, it was probably the first major league Filipino battery in history. (Not in all of baseball, of course. When I caught Marcelino Dumpit as a youth player for Dolores Park and Everett Jr. High in the ’60s, we had a nice Filipino battery going in the city leagues).

Fast forward to 2013, and an older Pacquiao has lost twice, his star not quite as bright as in 2009.

Lincecum? He’s had it even tougher. From double-CY winner to statistically being the worst starting pitcher in the league, Lincecum’s last two years have been a mess. He’s struggled to find the rhythm that made him into one of the game’s premier pitchers.

Then last Saturday, on 4/20 (coincidence?), Lincecum was brilliant. Throwing with control, Lincecum walked just two batters, and used his low-nineties fastball primarily to challenge hitters, striking out eight. Even more significant, he didn’t give up the big inning that has raised his ERA to over 5.  Does pitching to Posey at catcher really make that much of a difference? It sure seems to. The Giants won the game 2-0, courtesy of a Sandoval homer.

Lincecum earned his second win for the season and gained a lot more confidence as continues to get back to his 2009 form.

Giants fans, Filipino or not, left that night with big smiles on their faces.

The “Preak” was back.