Spending the week in Los Angeles, I was blissfully unaware that the issue of Tim Lincecum being pulled in the seventh inning of his last home start after 111 pitches and again in San Diego after 114 pitches had blown up into a full-blown controversy.

I didn't know that Ralph Barbieri went off and that Brian Sabean said he didn't give a "flying flip" about what Dave Flemming thought.

It's a great topic for debate, and I think most of the arguments on both sides have been well-articulated. I will throw out two points that I guess favor the side of caution and that I have not heard made, regarding the argument that in the old days nobody counted pitches.

1. In those days, before free agency, the players essentially were slaves and were paid as such. If a pitcher blew out his arm and could not pitch, the team was not out a whole lot of dough. The pitcher could just be released and someone else brought in.

The Giants have invested well over $2.5 million on Lincecum already. (Yeah, it ain't $126 million, but still...)

2. Old-timers tell me that because of the above, they often pitched with serious injuries just to keep their jobs. Former Giants manager Roger Craig said he believes he pitched an entire season with a torn rotator cuff. So the lack of pitch counts in the good old days might not have been all that good.

I can see both sides. If you're paying $200 to take your family of four to a ballgame, you want to see your team win, and if Lincecum strikes out 13 in seven innings and the bullpen blows it in the eighth, you're not going to leave as a happy customer.